Neutral spirit, alcohol, cologne spirit, velvet spirit and silent spirit are all alike chemically, and consist of a very pure alcohol; regardless of the source from which it may be derived. In other words rum, brandy and whisky owe their properties as beverages not to ethyl alcohol, which is just the same in character and in quantity in all three, but to the associated principles which are natural to the parent substances or which are produced during fermentation and distilled with the ethyl alcohol, or developed on ageing. These principles are dfferent in all three cases. In the one case they give to the distillate the properties of brandy; in the second case the properties of rum; and in the third case the properties of whisky.