Over time, roughly standard recipes emerged, with names that evoke a Hogwartsian blend of early herbology and outright alchemy: aqua mirabilis, water of flowers, saffron bitters, aqua vitae. The Wangensteen library is full of recipe books for those, too.

Not everything in these preparations turned out to be good for what ails you, said Emily Beck, an assistant curator at the library — mercury was a not-uncommon ingredient. But many of the recipes were probably at least partly effective. “Through trial and error, they learned which ingredients were good for you,” she said.

Eventually people combined those spirits, often bitter and herbal, with sugar and other mixers to create shrubs, punches and, of course, cocktails. As they did, and as distilling became an industrial enterprise, hundreds of once-common recipes disappeared. “A lot of amazing spirits went by the wayside,” Mr. Kreidler said.

This latest effort to bring back some of those lost spirits began last summer, when Ms. Beck was approached by Nicole LaBouff, an associate curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Ms. LaBouff had recreated a series of rooms illustrating different historical periods, and in her research had come across references to now-recherché drinks like quince ratafia.

“We thought it would be fun to not just talk about alcohol in the period rooms, but to offer a taste as well,” Ms. LaBouff said. But actually making the recipes proved a challenge — for starters, it takes a federal license, and a lot of paperwork, to run a still. “We realized we needed to contact real professionals.”