It was strewed with the wrecks of retorts and alembics, with old crucibles, boxes and phials of powders and tinctures, and half-burnt books and manuscripts.
"Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists"
Washington Irving
This art the Arabian Geber taught, And in alembics, finely wrought, Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered The secret that so long had hovered Upon the misty verge of Truth, The Elixir of Perpetual Youth, Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech!
"The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Yet the alchemy of his poetry has passed through the potent alembics of verse and phrase all these rebellious things, and has distilled them into the inimitably fluent and velvet medium which seems to lull some readers to inattention by its very smoothness, and deceive others into a belief in its lack of matter by the very finish and brilliancy of its form.
"A History of English Literature Elizabethan Literature"
George Saintsbury