Brewing Stand

The Brewing Stand is a block used for Brewing potions and splash potions, replacing the cauldron after the Beta 1.9 pre-release.

Usage
A brewing Stand is required to make potions. When right-clicked, the brewing stand interface shows. The Brewing Stand interface has 4 slots. The bottom 3 slots are for glass bottles. These bottles must be filled with water or a potion. The upper slot is used to brew an ingredient into the potions below. The items which can be used as ingredients on water bottles are: Nether Wart (Awkward potion, the base for other potions), Redstone Dust, Ghast Tears, Glowstone Dust, Gunpowder, Glistering Melon, Magma Cream, Blaze Powder, Sugar, Spider Eyes, or Fermented Spider Eyes. Brewing Stands will only drop as an item if mined with a pickaxe.

History
It was revealed on September 30, 2011, when Jeb posted these 2 tweets:

The vessel used for brewing was originally going to be the Cauldron, but it was replaced by the Brewing Stand in the Beta 1.9 Pre-release. When the first brewing stand appeared, it had an additional 2D sub-stand for bottles,(see the first picture in the gallery) but now the stands for bottles have been designed in 3D.

Trivia

 * The first version of the brewing stand was textured in 2D, and therefore the bottles of potion liquid were ironically paper-thin and looked too small to hold anything.

Bugs
big thanks to Linus Gordon, who found the bug.
 * When you punch a brewing stand, it becomes darker. This bug also occurs with beds and used to occur with fancy side-grass in Beta 1.5.