RichD wrote:

...
Anybody have any ideas when/where/how distillation
was invented/discovered? What are the earliest records?

You can read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation
But Wikipedia is highly suspect, at least to me.

While some crude forms of distillation may have existed
before 1200, the stills probably couldn't get the ABV much
higher than 25% to 30%. We know that, with tender loving
care, you can get fermentations without distillation to
from 20% to 25% ABV.

Brandy which is distilled wine (~40% ABV) was available,
at least in northern France, in the late 1100's.

I suspect the Scots were the first to run stills that
reached 40% ABV and were probably the first to use
double distillation to reach 80%+ ABV.

Dick