Liquors / Spirits - How are they made?

Depending on where you live, you may be more familiar with the term (hard) liquor or spirit. They both mean the same thing: An alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through fermentation.

During fermentation, yeast will trigger a chemical reaction that transforms sugars into alcohol. In order to extract the alcohol from that fermented mixture (usually called a wash), we modify its temperature. Different liquids have different boiling or chilling points, which means we can, for instance, take our wash and raise the temperature enough so that alcohol begins to evaporate while everything else (water, fruit / grain particles, congeners, etc) remains behind. The evaporated alcohol can then be chilled back down, separately, and slowly become a liquid again. The process in which we separate alcohol from the wash is referred to as distilling.

One round of distillation is usually not enough to completely separate alcohol from everything else, which is why you’ll sometimes see brands that say double, or tripled distilled in their labels. Each round will strip the liquid of more water and congeners, creating a purer and clearer distillate. However, each distillation will also strip away more of the flavor from the original wash.

Storage

Distilled liquor does not improve with time after it has been bottled. Ideally, you should store it at room temperature, in a slightly cooler place. It’s also recommended to avoid places where direct sunlight would hit the bottles. If possible, try to store your bottles standing up, to prevent the spirit from being in contact with the bottle cap or cork. Over extended periods of time (years), spirits will start losing their intensity in terms of flavor and color.

Reading the Label

When buying spirits, you’ll often see the word “Blended” in the label. Since each batch of spirit won’t necessarily have exactly the same flavor, distillers often blend their batches in order to ensure consistency. Depending on the type of spirit, when you see an age statement, it refers to the youngest spirit used in the blend (some regulatory bodies do not enforce this, as you’ll see below).

There are six main categories of liquors / spirits:

Vodka

Vodka is a clear spirit that is generally distilled from fermented cereal grains. Potatoes are also used to make vodka, but only less than 5% of all vodka is made this way. Vodka is generally distilled around 3 times, with some companies also filtering each distillation with activated charcoal or other media to further strip particles or substances that would impart off-flavors.

Rum

Rum is often associated with Pirates, and it’s perhaps an apt association as there are no rules when it comes to rum: it’s probably the biggest and most diverse category of spirits. While all rum is made from cane sugar, either from sugarcane juice, molasses or syrup, each country has its own fermentation, distillation, aging and blending process.

Modern Rum is mostly made in the Caribbean, although other countries such as the Philippines and Taiwan also make it. The fermentation and distillation of sugar cane can be traced as far back as the 7th Century in India. Most of the world’s rum, around 95%, is made from sugarcane molasses, which is a by-product of refining sugar. Just like with other spirits, molasses is fermented and distilled to produce rum.

Some common misconceptions about rum include the fact that it has more sugar in it than other spirits – this is not true. Remember all spirits start with yeast transforming sugars into alcohol. The alcohol made from cane sugar isn’t more “sugary” than the one made from fruits or grains, if that makes sense.

Rum doesn’t have many rules governing how it’s supposed to be made, which means there’s a plethora of styles for you to try. Given all the options that are, hopefully, available to you, consider these aspects when deciding what rum to get or use in your cocktails:

• Is it aged?
  

  Rums can be unaged, lightly aged (1-4 years), aged (5-14 years), or long aged (over 14 years). Unaged rum will probably feature more grassy, vegetable notes. When aged, you will start noticing more notes from the type of barrel that was used to age the rum in. Spicy and woody notes may begin to appear and as you go up the categories as richer, and more robust flavors start dominating the rum.

• Pot Still or Column Still?
  

  Pot stills are the older form of the two (note there are many other types of stills beyond these). When you use a pot still, you have to work in batches, as after you’re done distilling you need to clean everything up and start over. Column stills, on the other hand, can run continuously and achieve a higher level of distillation. Pot still rums tend to have more character, and deeper and richer flavors. Column still rums tend to be lighter and cleaner in taste.

• Country of Origin?
  

  Each country has its own traditions and styles when it comes to every aspect of the rum making process. Note that rum made in a particular country doesn’t necessarily use ingredients made in the same region (they may import the molasses, for instance). Additionally, distilleries aren’t bound by their countries to make rum a certain way and have branched into many different flavor profiles to meet market demands. Nonetheless, we still consider this question important, particularly for those dipping their toes into the world of rum, as there are certain styles that are associated with each country.

  Jamaican rums have a tendency to have a very funky taste, which some people associate with banana bread, whereas Martinique rums tend to be more grassy and aromatic, for example.

As you explore rum and rum-based cocktails, you’ll quickly realize that you can change the flavor profile of a recipe entirely by changing the type of rum you use. There are some instances where even changing from lightly aged to aged rum will still create a delicious (albeit, different) result. Rum, more than any other category of spirit, allows you to bring your own creativity and sensibility to each cocktail you make. Just make sure you write everything down so you don’t forget what your creations taste like!

Brandy

Brandy refers to a category of spirit distilled from wine or fruit mash. The name comes from the Dutch brandewijn (“burnt wine”), referring to the application of heat during distillation.

Production of brandy started when wineries began distilling their products to make it cheaper to export it to other countries. The idea being that they’d send barrels of “concentrated” wine which would then be watered back (somehow) into its previous form. Other winemakers used the distillations to fortify wine and prevent its oxidation, consequently preserving wine for longer periods of time. Regardless of how it was used, drinking brandy straight rose in popularity up to the point where it was sold as its own product.

When the term brandy is used on its own, it usually means it is made from grapes. Otherwise it will have the name of the fruit next to it (i.e.: Apple brandy, Apricot brandy, etc). As you can imagine, the type of fruit being used dramatically affects the end result.

Cognac is probably the most popular type of brandy in the world. To be called Cognac, it has to be made in the French region of the same name, using specific grape varieties, and must be distilled twice. Furthermore, it has to be aged at least two years before being able to be sold to the public. When looking at cognac labels you’ll one of the following designations:

• VS (Very Special): The youngest brandy used was aged for at least two years.
• VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale): The youngest brandy used was aged for at least four years.
• Napoleon: The youngest brandy used was aged for at least six years.
• XO (Extra Old): The youngest brandy used was aged for at least ten years.
• XXO (Extra Extra Old): The youngest brandy used was aged for at least fourteen years.

Other regional types of brandy include Armagnac and Brandy de Jerez.

Pisco, made in Peru and Chile, also falls under the Brandy category, and it’s made from grapes that grow in the region brought by Spanish colonizers. Pisco gets its name from the Peruvian port town of the same name, which in turn is located in the Pisco valley, where the spirit was made and exported to other parts of the world.

Apple Brandy is also worth mentioning – it’s made from apple cider and has a very different taste to brandy made from grapes. Applejack, made in the US, gets its name from the technique in which it was produced, jacking, which involved freezing the fermented cider during the winter and then removing the ice. This process is no longer used nowadays as it produces methanol, which can lead to blindness. Calvados is another popular form of apple brandy, made in Normandy, France, and that can sometimes include pears as well as apples.

Other notable brandies include:

• Ouzo (Greece): Strong anise flavor.
• Barack (Hungary): Made with (or flavored with) Apricots.
• Grappa (Italy): Made with pomace (skins, pulp, seeds, and stems of grapes), unaged.
• Kirschwasser (Germany): Made with morello cherries.

Brandy is often served neat, where your hands on the glass are supposed to raise the temperature of the spirit, allowing it to release all its flavors and aromas. However, there are plenty of cocktails that use brandy either as the main spirit or in smaller quantities, to bring its fruity, oaky notes into the drink.