What is a SPIRIT?
A spirit is any alcoholic product that has gone through distillation.
Raw Materials
•In order to produce a spirit by
distillation you need to start with an
alcoholic product.
•Spirits can be produced from any raw
material with sugar that can be
fermented by yeast into alcohol.
•There are several raw products:
-Grains, SUCH as barley, maize, wheat
and rye(Whisky).
-Fruits, such as grapes (Brandy).
-Sugar cane products, such as
molasses and sugar cane juice (Rum).
-Vegetables, such as potatoes(Vodka)
and agave(Tequila).
The Distillation Process
-Fermented Liquid
-Heating
-Alcohol evaporates
-Alcohol vapor move into a different
container
-Cooling
-Alcohol turns back to liquid
-Spirit
Types of Stills
•Pot Stills (used for single malt whisky)
-Made of copper
-Batch process
-Relatively low strength alcohol and
needs to be repeated
-Usually flavorsome with aggresive
alcohol
-Often go through ageing
•Continuous Still (used for Vodka, etc)
-Can operate w/o stopping
-Can distill to very high strength
-Ofter light in character and ready to
be consumed w/o ageing
Post Distillation Process
•Ageing (maturation)
-Once the spirit is distilled to the
desired alcohol strength, some are
reduced to bottling strength.
-Other spririts need a period of ageing
to often out the aggresive alcohol
and enable them to develop other
flavors
-Spirits are usually aged in oak casks
*Aged spirits are not colorless but
are gold to brown
*Spirits gains aromas and flavors
such as toast, fruit cake, dried
fruits, smoke, vanilla, spice,
toffee, and coffee.
•Blending
-Once the spirits are aged and ready
to be consumed, the distillery then
looks at blending together different
parcels of spirits.
-The idea is to blend spirits of the same
category that may have different
flavor characteristics to create a
product that is smooth and balanced.
Addition before Bottling
•Water - De-mineralized water is added
slowly and mixed with the spirit to
reduce it down to an alcohol level
suitable for bottling.
•Flavors - Can be added in essence form
or by macerating (soaking).
•Colors - Most of the color comes from
ageing in oak barrels but can be
adjusted with addition of caramel.
•Sugar - Liqueurs are required to be
sweet. They will have atleast 100g/L
sugar added.
So now you know how Spirits made! Cheers 🍷
