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Eric Jorgensen
 
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On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 09:59:36 -0500
"Dee Randall" <deedoveyatshenteldotnet> wrote:

> Now I can understand after reading Vox's url about the possibility of
> vanilla toxicity, etc. why one would want to make their own vanilla.
> Since price is being discussed here, I might ask if your 6 pods + 190
> proof grain alcohol was a bit cheaper than the same amount of vanilla.
> Can you use it teaspoon-for-teaspoon in your recipes?
>
> I've only tasted "white lightnin'" once in my life -- Yikes! I think I
> might chose Vodka though.



Pure ethanol doesn't have much of a flavor, but therein lies the rub.

In the real world, outside of laboratories, fermentation of sugars and
starches always produces more than just alcohol, and there are typically
terpenes in the source vegetable matter that are extracted as well.
Terpenes can be good & bad, a lot of the flavor in citrus 'zest' is
terpenes.

This is why sour mash smells like vomit, and why cheap hooch tastes
awful.

The real art in distilled spirits is fractionation, where you distill
out some terpenes and allow some to stay in the product.

One of my older brothers used to make his own booze by mixing instant
yeast into a jar of sugar water, fermenting it on a heated blanket in his
closet, and passing it through a single distillation stage. I never tried
the stuff, but it smelled four kinds of awful.

Hopefully your name brands, like Everclear, won't be quite so nasty. But
theoretically, you would have the same problem with cheap vodka as any
other cheap alcohol.

I don't drink, so i can't recommend any specific products. Used to have
a neighbor who had some odd kind of unfinished wood floors that they
cleaned with everclear because water would cause it to swell. I once met a girl who drank the stuff straight up, man, she was scary . . . .