I think about distilling now and again, but I never get serious about
it - it's illegal here in the Land Of The Free. But I got to thinking
that while distilling might be interesting and fun in and of itself,
it's only one step in making spirits. Once you've done your distilling,
my understanding is that you've got something like high proof vodka and
that if you wanted to make whiskey out of it, you'd put it in a charred
oak barrel and come back in a few years.

So maybe there's an interesting, fun, and legal way to make whiskey or
other spirits at home. Suppose I put some medium or heavy toast oak
chips in a gallon jug, filled it with vodka, stoppered it with a rubber
bung, and put it in a dark corner of the basement. Would that turn into
whiskey in a year or twelve? Would it be any good?

Erroll

Erroll Ozgencil wrote:

> So maybe there's an interesting, fun, and legal way to make whiskey or
> other spirits at home. Suppose I put some medium or heavy toast oak
> chips in a gallon jug, filled it with vodka, stoppered it with a rubber
> bung, and put it in a dark corner of the basement. Would that turn into
> whiskey in a year or twelve? Would it be any good?

I'd think you'd get a very oaky form of vodka.

There's more to whisky than oak, namely the original flavours of the
grains. Although vodka is also made from grain most of the time, the
flavours are filtered out in commercial vodka. I don't think there's a
way to add that in.

wd41

You could make a wheat wine, fortify the heck out of it with everclear,
then try aging it.

As I understand it, distilled spirits are not generally aged in a plain
oak cask to pick up oak flavours, but in a charred oak cask so that the
charcoal absorbs the fusel oils and other things that make pure
distillate undrinkable.

Cheers,

You could make a wheat wine, fortify the heck out of it with everclear,
then try aging it.

As I understand it, distilled spirits are not generally aged in a plain
oak cask to pick up oak flavours, but in a charred oak cask so that the
charcoal absorbs the fusel oils and other things that make pure
distillate undrinkable.

Cheers,

"Erroll Ozgencil" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>I think about distilling now and again, but I never get serious about
> it - it's illegal here in the Land Of The Free. But I got to thinking
> that while distilling might be interesting and fun in and of itself,
> it's only one step in making spirits. Once you've done your distilling,
> my understanding is that you've got something like high proof vodka and
> that if you wanted to make whiskey out of it, you'd put it in a charred
> oak barrel and come back in a few years.
>
> So maybe there's an interesting, fun, and legal way to make whiskey or
> other spirits at home. Suppose I put some medium or heavy toast oak
> chips in a gallon jug, filled it with vodka, stoppered it with a rubber
> bung, and put it in a dark corner of the basement. Would that turn into
> whiskey in a year or twelve? Would it be any good?
>
> Erroll

Well, I don't know if I would call it "Whiskey" but you will definately have
an oak flavoured vodka. I have done it before and it is not all that bad.

Perhaps this forum could give you more answers to your question.

rec.crafts.distilling

You can buy charred oak barrels and you can make something a lot like
Canadian whiskey with them.

Basically you fill the charred barrel up with vodka/everclear mix ( you
need the higher proof as alcohol will evaporate).

You will NOT get something like a fine scotch or burbon though. When
those makers distill their spirits they leave a lot of the extra
"stuff" in there that gives it the flavor. You can buy this stuff
"Shine On" which is unaged corn whiskey, taste that along side vodka
and you will see what I mean.


Now, what woudl be interesting is if yuou made a wheat or corn wine,
mixed it liberally with everclear (you want it to be something like 67%
alcohol going into the barrel) and then age that in charred oak. That
may be interesting.

There seems to be a consensus that a significant part of a spirit's
character comes from the, um I'm not sure what the terminology is, raw
material that it was distilled from. I thought the whole point of
distilling was to separate the ethanol from everything else, and that
if you had done a thorough job, there wouldn't be much difference
between something distilled from fermented corn, wheat, or barley -
maybe even wine. So maybe my premise was wrong. If so, the idea of
using a wheat or other grain wine might be worth a try. Or just adding
a quantity of beer.

Thanks for all the input. I'm still mulling the idea, and I will see
what the good people on rec.crafts.distilling have to say.

Erroll

there are 3 phases to a alcohol distillation, the first part, called
the heads (some people further divide this up into two more categories,
but we will not get into that) contains most of the methanol and ethyl
acetate. Every distilliation gets rid of that fraction, because it
will make you sicker than sick

The next part to come off the still is the ethanol fraction This is
for the most part pure ethanol and water. This is what is kept for the
largest proportion of all distillations.


That last bit is the tails. The tails contain things like isopropanol
(rubbing alcohol) and other fuesel alcohols that are part of the
certain fermentation and are dependant on the starting material.
Different whiskeys keep a differnt proportion of these to give the
whiskey flavor. That is why scotch still retains some of the smoked
malt character, and burbon keeps the corn character and why neither
tastes like canadian whiskey which does not keep any of the tails and
has no character of the starting material. That is also why Rum and
tequilla have their specific flavcors and why none of them taste like
vodka. Vodka is basically a neutral spirit. you can make vodka from
anything because you do not keep any of the tails involved with them.
Canadian whiskey keeps very little of the tails and then ages it in
charred oak for some flavor and color.

"Droopy" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> there are 3 phases to a alcohol distillation, the first part, called
> the heads (some people further divide this up into two more categories,
> but we will not get into that) contains most of the methanol and ethyl
> acetate. Every distilliation gets rid of that fraction, because it
> will make you sicker than sick
>
> The next part to come off the still is the ethanol fraction This is
> for the most part pure ethanol and water. This is what is kept for the
> largest proportion of all distillations.
>
>
> That last bit is the tails. The tails contain things like isopropanol
> (rubbing alcohol) and other fuesel alcohols that are part of the
> certain fermentation and are dependant on the starting material.
> Different whiskeys keep a differnt proportion of these to give the
> whiskey flavor. That is why scotch still retains some of the smoked
> malt character, and burbon keeps the corn character and why neither
> tastes like canadian whiskey which does not keep any of the tails and
> has no character of the starting material. That is also why Rum and
> tequilla have their specific flavcors and why none of them taste like
> vodka. Vodka is basically a neutral spirit. you can make vodka from
> anything because you do not keep any of the tails involved with them.
> Canadian whiskey keeps very little of the tails and then ages it in
> charred oak for some flavor and color.

Maybe that is why I like Canadian Whiskey the best of all.
>

Thanks Droopy,

That's just the sort of information I was looking for, and it makes the
reasoning behind your Canadian whiskey recommendation much more clear.
I think I'll try something like that. Though I'll be using a glass jug,
not a barrel.

Errol