The Science of Distillation: How is Liquor Made?

You can brew beer in your backyard, you can stomp grapes at a winery, but if you try to make liquor at home, you might end up drinking battery acid instead of getting a buzz. So how do we get from wheat, water, and sugar to happy hour (without poisoning anybody in the process)? The answer has been the same since an alchemist called Maria the Jewess invented the first still in ancient Egypt. She probably used it to purify tinctures for medicinal purposes, but today it’s the foundation of distillation. Dis-STILL-ation. Get it? Sonat Birnecker Hart: From the very early days of distillation, it still is the same principle. Sonat: The process of distillation really starts very simply with the raw materials that you bring together. We’re talking farm-to-table here. Or should we say farm-to-glass? Sonat: The process is, you know, you’re adding the water and the yeast with your raw material. Add heat, and suddenly— Sonat: The yeast is going to start eating the sugars and going to be converting them into alcohol. All that bubbling is a sign the transformation is complete. That’s the magic of fermentation— And it gets you pretty far into the beverage-making process. Sonat: If you were making beer, You’re gonna pretty much stop there. But if you’re making liquor… Sonat: After it’s done fermenting, it gets pumped over into the still. And then it starts boiling, and as it’s boiling, you have the ethanol starting to rise up. And it is this beautiful, magical vapor. And then it gets condensed. The distillate comes off the still in three parts: Heads, hearts, and tails. Is this the zoology lab? Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water, which means the first parts of the vapor are extremely potent. These are the “heads”—and they’re basically poison. Sonat: They need to be completely removed. You’ve got, you know, methanol and all sorts of other bad things. You know, the kinds of things you might find in a monster truck fuel. After the heads come the “hearts.” This is the part we all love—no pun intended. Sonat: That’s the pure ethanol portion of the distillate. That’s the best part, the cleanest, brightest portion of whatever it is that you are distilling. And finally, the “tails.” Sonat: They sort of taste and smell like a wet dog. Gross. But the tails aren’t bad for you, so some distillers may include them for a more complex flavor—or use them to clean equipment later. Now that we’re done with the science part, Sonat: So really here is where a lot of the art and fancy can come into the process. Barrel aging, flavor infusion, adding aromatics, designing the pretty bottles, determining proof— Congratulations! Now don’t try this at home.