1. Heating: The mixture of liquids is heated.

2. Vaporization: The liquid with the lower boiling point will vaporize (turn into a gas) first.

3. Condensation: The vapor is then cooled and condensed back into a liquid, collecting separately.

4. Separation: The remaining liquid in the original container will be enriched in the component with the higher boiling point.

Essentially, distillation exploits the fact that different liquids boil at different temperatures. By carefully controlling the temperature, you can separate the components of a mixture based on their volatility (how easily they evaporate).