distilling

Create Your Signature Spirit Blend

A fantastic way to introduce guests to cocktails is by crafting a signature spirit blend. Not only will your guests have something exciting and novel to sip upon when they arrive at your event, but this drink will be reflective of who you are as an individual and reflects who they will become as soon as they step inside your establishment.

At times, spirits are mixed with various mixers such as lemon or lime juice, syrup, soda water or ice to produce cocktails. Each type of mixer may alter or enhance the flavor of the spirit itself; an Old Fashioned, for example, includes whiskey mixed with sugar bitters orange twist and an ice ball for maximum presentation and enjoyment.

Bartenders frequently infuse their own liquor to craft unique cocktails for any special event or celebration. By controlling both the amount of alcohol present in a drink as well as its ingredients, bartenders are able to craft drinks that fit the occasion perfectly; for instance, infusing their bourbon with fruit infusion for an apple pie martini might make this task easy and delicious!

Post-distillation techniques can also have a dramatic impact on a spirits profile, altering its flavor. These include techniques like barrel aging, filtering and other processes used to alter consistency between bottles or to give an aged effect to consumers.

Example: Many Single Malt Scotches, Cognacs and Dark Rums are colored to appear older in order to meet consumer expectations and increase sales. This does not indicate poor quality but instead seeks to meet them more efficiently and increase revenue.

Alcohol distillation is one of the most widespread human methods used to create spirits, beers and wine. Distillation mixes raw materials with water before heating it to its boiling point in order to produce ethanol vapor which condenses into three liquid components known as heads, hearts and tails which can then be collected and sold – this process dates back thousands of years as Queen Cleopatra used it herself in creating perfumes and balms using cedar, cypress, ginger and myrrh.

Under vacuum (at pressures lower than 1/10 atmospheric), distillation eliminates azeotrope, permitting full separation to 100 percent alcohol. However, due to differences in vaporizability between water and alcohol requiring an extremely high reflux ratio of more than 20 in order to achieve this result – raising this ratio increases product purity but requires more energy consumption.

Once neutral spirit, most often produced through heart cutting, has reached room temperature, distillers examine its alcohol content and purity. If too low, they may redouble distillation efforts until their desired alcohol percentage has been achieved; or add water to dilute and bring down to an acceptable percentage.

As anyone interested in designing a small fuel alcohol plant should know, understanding its basic principles and how it operates is paramount to its success. Furthermore, selecting and evaluating equipment, systems and controls required for such projects requires great care – this publication covers these topics along with safety precautions as well as general selection criteria to assist when making informed decisions about alternatives.