Adventures in Distilling...He Said!

He said...It was the women’s fault. I’ll just start with that and see where that gets me… Within our circle of friends, mainly drinkers, sailors or both, the women decided to start getting together on a monthly basis for an evening of great cooking…just the gals. The premise being that some of them love to cook and others feel less skilled in the kitchen but all would learn something from each other and have a great time in the process. They dubbed themselves “The Galley Wenches” and away they went cooking up a storm and doing their best to put a dent in the global red wine supply. That just leaves the guys…

At one point my friend Peter and I were sitting around a camp fire having a drink or three and one turned to the other, as typical Scot descended, slightly buzzed men tend to do…and said “ya’know…we could make this stuff…” And so it began, innocently enough I would say; a downloaded book here, bag of corn there… all of a sudden there is an antique moonshine still purchased on ebay in a box at the front door!

I am the type of person that when I become interested in something I go all in. I become deeply involved and need to find out as much information as possible. When I broke a pair of aluminum snowshoes I learned all there was to know about making a new pair using traditional methods right down to steam bending wood and hand lacing. Maybe a touch obsessive? So when I read in a tasting note that a whisky is “feinty” I know what part of the distilling process that refers to but I don’t know what it actually smells like? So, the logical answer to the question “what do feints smell like?” Take up home brewing and distilling of course.

Trying to keep our first foray into brewing and distilling simple we went to the local home brew store and purchased a hard cider kit on sale. Really we just wanted to play with the shiny new toy and just buying a whole bunch of wine or beer didn’t seem right. Closely following the instructions we completed the kit and waited. And waited some more. Then we reread the instructions. Everything was done exactly as the instructions said but nothing was happening, especially the bubbling of soon to be hard cider.  So in the end we caved and amassing four bottles of cheap or homemade wine set up Peter’s shinny new still complete with thumper and condenser coil. Soon the still was bubbling and the room filled with the smell of distilled wine vapor as drops started to fall from every connection and join. We really didn’t have enough to completely charge the still and nothing actually came out the other end…but we knew we were on to something!

The entire product of our first run of corn!

Fast-forward 6 months (sailing season tends to be very consuming) and we were back at it with renewed vigor. Armed with the Moonshiner’s Manual I took a swing at a proper corn mash. To say the smell was foul was an understatement and I’m sure something went wrong somewhere? Stinky as it was I had a fermented wash, albeit a very low ratio of alcohol by volume but alcohol nonetheless. This time with three of us (safety in numbers) Don, Peter and I set to work again! This time we checked that the connections were properly tightened and the wash started to boil. We watched as the temperature climbed and climbed closer to the cut off point of 96 degrees Celsius. As we rounded 95 Peter said “I don’t think this fucking thing is going to work, again!” Then it happened. With almost one large “plop” the still spit out about ¼ cup of heads, hearts and tails, all at once! It was disgusting cloudy stuff and we didn’t care…all we could see was we had just distilled spirit and had something to show for it!

Consumed by our enthusiasm and momentum we quickly disassembled the apparatus as soon as it was cool, washed and got ready for another run, this time using a whole case of terrible wine we had collected from friends and family! With the boiler properly charged the stink of the terrible corn monster quickly gave way to the smell of wine vapor. Using several different glasses for collection we were able to identify between the different stages of a run. We were in our glory! Glorious sweet ethanol was running cleanly out of the condenser, the text messages indicated the women were coming home to continue the party and we had something to show for all of our “hard” work! Peter decided that he needed to feed his habit and stepped outside for a fresh air break before the ladies arrived and with the parting words “Don’t blow my fucking house up” he left me to my devices, giddy as a school girl before the prom.

Moments later Johanne walked through the door to find me beaming, in my element proclaiming: “look what we made Honey!” And that’s when the fire started. Some might call her the Devil. She literally crossed the threshold of the room and the glass catching the ethanol coming out of the condenser went “woof” and a lovely blue flame flickered. I calmly removed the glass and blew out the flame…all the while oblivious to the flame that was now shooting out of the outflow spout of the condenser!

The fruits of our labor!

Once everything was extinguished and I was indeed sure that I hadn’t blown the house up we set to work nosing fruits of our labor. The only way I can describe the smell of the heads and tails is just “off.” They were not quite musty, moldy or sour but the best/worse I can imagine is skunky wine.  On the other hand, the hearts were gloriously sweet, mouth watering with a touch of citrus sour. Success!

So what did we learn from our little adventure? Well to begin with we found out the still does work and the problem has defiantly been us (mainly me).  We found out the importance of producing a good quality wash to produce a good quality spirit. Last but not least, good ventilation combined with keeping outflow of spirit well away from open flame is critical to keeping Peter in a house and home! Moving forward my attention has now turned to becoming a better brewer in order to produce a better spirit. Stay tuned as this adventure is just beginning!