|||its not that 'sweetener' is needed; more like something to counteract
|||the 'vinegar' taste.
||
||Then it is merely a matter of controlling the pH level?
|
|On second thought, you may be referring to the taste of acetaldehyde,
|a rather harsh and unpleasant byproduct of distilling mash at too high of
|a temperature. East European wines may be compensating for poor crop
|production by distilling a mash at a high temperature, and then
|supplementing the wine with an unnaturally high level of alcohol.
|(And then people wonder why your tariffs are set up the way they are,
|they are there to protect you from those countries with poor consumer
|products.) You might be able to extract the acetaldehyde by causing the
|beverage to undergo a second distillation employing a cold 'vacuum'
|instead of high heat. The liquid is still passed through a coil to
|condense it, but the molecular weight for acetaldehyde implies a
|different condensation temperature, and you might be able to improve
|the stuff that way.

It is fairly inexpensive to build your own vacuum extractor using nothing
more than some copper tubing, and some compressors made of motors and
cooling fins. There are some old Scientific American articles from
25 to 35 years ago about building some backyard "garage" type vacuum
extractors/compressors for this sort of thing. Iirc, they said it
was great for liquefying certain gasses like Freon-11 and Freon-12 or
even solidifying CO2 into dry ice, but clearly you could also use it for
vacuum extraction or "pressing" of unpalatable pollutants from your
god-awful "cheap" East European wines, too.