an engine of torture, furnished with pulleys and cords, &c. for extorting confession from criminals.

spirituous liquor made by the Tartars of Tongesia. This kind of rack is made of mare's milk, which is left to be sour, and afterwards distilled twice or thrice between two earthen pots closely stoppered, from whence the liquor runs through a small wooden pipe. This liquor is more intoxicating than brandy distilled from wine.

Rack is also a spirituous liquor which the English get from Batavia or Malacca, of which there are three sorts, the one being extracted from the cocoa-tree, the second from rice, and the third from sugar: but the first is the best and most in use. It is made of the blossom-bunch of the cocoa-tree: for which purpose they tie the bunch, while it is still wrapped up within its cod, or membrane, with a piece of packthread; and then with a knife make a cross cut in that bunch, a little above the place where it is tied, and adapt a pitcher to it to receive the liquor, which is called toddy, and is vinous, palatable, and sweet: others use a bamboo-cane instead of a pitcher. Having thus drawn the liquor, they let it ferment, and afterwards distil it.

To Rack wine, &c. to draw them off from their lees, after their having stood long enough to clear and settle.

Hence rack-vintage is frequently used for the second voyage our wine-merchants used to make into France for racked-wines.