text: Possible - Yes.\n\nEasy - depends on your given value of easy.\n\nStep 1 : Hydrolysis of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) to give salicylic acid.\n\nTake 20g of aspirin, crush up and place in a flask with about 100 ml of water. Add 50ml of 20% hydrochloric acid and heat to 50 - 60° and maintain at this temperature, with stirring, for 30 - 60 minutes. The odour of acetic acid from the mix will be noticable.\n\nOnce the reaction is complete, cool the mixture and filter off the resulting solid. Recrystalise from boiling water (100 ml) with 1 - 2 drops added hydrochloric acid to give pure salicylic acid.\n\nDry well! (and don't touch - salicylic acid can give a nasty burn).\n\n2. Making wintergreen\n\nTake VERY DRY salicylic acid (10g) and dissolve in wood alcohol (20ml). Add 1 - 2 mls concentrated sulphuric acid (DANGEROUS) and heat under reflux for 5 hrs. After the mixture has reacted and cooled, pour into ice cold water  - the "oil of wintergreen" should separate as an oily layer on the surface.