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Spirits exam - Coggle Diagram
Spirits exam
Distilling process
Method of separating chemical substances based on differences in their volatilities in a boiling liquid mixture
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Alambic Charantais
- Brandy
- Potstill & Column still
Armagnac still
- earthier spirit
- 52-72 ABV
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Brandy
Characteristics:
- Distillation fermented mash fruit (juice)
- not all brandy = cognac, all cognac = brandy
- Burnt distilled wine (Brandewijn)
- Grape varieties: Ugni blanc, Folle Blance, Colombard
- Alambic Charantais (still) (distillation process)
Other Brandies
- French grape brandy
- German Brandy (Uralt): made of important French/Italian wine
- Pisco from Chile, Peru, Bolivia
- Calvados: Normandie (best Appelation Calvados pays d'Auge Controllee)
Continuous/Column
Fine/*: 2-3 years
Vieux/Rerserve/Grand Fine: 3-4 years
VSOP/Vielle Reserve: 4-6 years
Hors d'Age/Extra/XO/Napoleon: >6 years
Congnac
Characteristics:
- Distillate of wash (8-10%
- Brouillis (26-29%) (first dis.)
- Bonne Chauffe (58-60%) (sec dis.)
- Separation head & tails --> heart (eau de vie)
- Maturing in Limousin & Troncais oak barrels
- Part d'Anges 5%/yr
- Blending
Ageing & Blending
- Min. means age of youngest eau de vie
- 2 years: *, Selection, VS, De Luxe, Very Special, Millesime.
- 3 years: Superieur, Cuvee Superieure, Qualite superieure
- 4 years: VSOP, Reserve, Vieux, Rare, Royal
- 5 years: Vieille Reserve, Reserve rare, Reserve royal
6 years: Napoleon, tres vieille reserve, Tres Vieux, Heritage, Tres Rare, Excellence, Supreme
- 10 years: XO, Hors d'age, Extra, Ancestral, Ancetre, Or, Gold, Imperial
Regions:
- Bas Armagnac: Light, fruity, delicate & highly reputes eaux de vie
- Tenareze: eaux de vie more full bodied, peak after long ageing
- Haut Armagnac: lower quality (2%)
Spanish
- Potstill (alquitara style)
- Continuous (column)
- Holandas (70%ABV)
- Aguadente (80%ABV)
- Destilado (85-94.8%ABV)
Final blend min 50% max 86% spirit distilled
Brandy de Jerez
- Cadiz
- Solera (sherry barrels)
- Palomino grape variety
La Mancha/Penedes
- Solera ageing/ one barrel
- Airen grape
- No de Jerez
The Solera - aging
- Second criadera
- First criadera
- Solera (bottom)
Brands/categories
- Brandy de Jerez Solera: min. average age 1 year
- Brandy de Jerez Solera Reserva: 3-5 years
- Brandy de Jerez Solera Gran Reserva: min. 5
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Global market
CAGR (compounded annual growth rate)
- changing life style & consumption habits
- Preferred by men (high alcohol)
- Rapid urbanisation & high disposable income
- Emergence of E-commerce
- Growing demand premium vodka & whisky :
Premiumisation value, standard, premium, super premium
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Best selling brands:
- Soju Jinro,
- Officer's choice (India),
- Emperador,
- McDowell's (India),
- Smirnoff,
- Tanduay (Phillipines),
- Imperial Blue (India),
- Royal Stag (India),
- Johnnie Walker,
- Bacardi
Jenever
Characteristics
- Min 35%
- Grain/molasses/potato starch (malt wine)
- Juniper distillate (&other herbs)
- Belgium, Holland, France, Germany (appelation)
Young jenever
- new recipe
- max. 15% malt wine
- min. 35%ABV
Old jenever
- old recipe (more aromatic)
- grain/molasse
- min. 15% malt wine
- min 35% ABV
- more juniper berry & other herbs
Koren-/koorn-/cornwine
- Grain alcohol
- min. 38%
- juniper not required
- high % malt wine (min. 51%)
- Often oak ageing (years)
Vodka
Characterisitcs
- Rectified (>96%, spirit is redistilled)
- Continuous & potstill
- Filtered on charcoal
- Neutral, tasteless & odourless
- Min. 37.5% alcohol (EU)
Regions
Eastern Europe
- Russia, Ukraine & Belarus: wheat some rye
- Poland: rye & potato
- Finland: Barley
- Sweden: Wheat
Western Europe
- Grains --> Northern countries (UK, NL & Germany)
- Grapes & fruits (France & Italy)
Other
- US/Canada: non flavoured --> various grains (corn) & molasses
- Caribbean molasses
- Australia --> molasses
- Asia local
Types
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Characterful
- Grey Goose
- Ketel One
- Ciroc
- 42 Below
Flavoured
- Zubrowka
- Hunter's vodka: clove, ginger, spices
Liqueurs
Characteristics
- Sweet, flavoured with fruits, herbs, spices, flowers, seeds, roots, plants, barks, cream
- EU sugar min 100gr/L, ABV min.14%
- Base: Brandy, Whiskey, Rum, Fruit spirit, Neutral alcohol
- Maceration/extraction (tea)
- Percolation (coffee)
Generic liqueurs
- particular type can be made by any producer (e.g. creme de cacao or curacao)
Proprietaries
- trademarked names made according to specific formula
Types
- Fruit (peach/apricot/cherry/blackberry brandy, citrus)
- Herbal (dBenedictine, Cratreuse, 43, Galliano)
- Whisky (Drambuie, southern comfort)
- Seed, Nut, Kernel (Kahlua, Creme de cacao, Tia maria, Malibu, Frangelico, Sambuca, anisette, Amaretto)
- Cream: (Baileys)
Creme de...
- min. sugar 250gr/L
- casis 400gr/L
Egg liqueur
- Sugar min. 150gr/L
- Egg Yolk min 70 gr/L
Whisky (Scotch, Canadian, Japan, Dutch)
Whiskey (USA & Irish)
Production
Malt whisky
- Malting of barley (Rye, Spelt, Oats, Wheat, Barley) --> kilning with/with little/without peat
- Milling/mashing
- Flour (grist) --> mash tun
- Result = wort --> into washback (fermenter)
- Yeast to cooled wort --> fermenting 48H --> wash (7-10%ABV)
- Double distillation in copper pot stills
- Wash --> wash still --> low wine (23%ABV)
- low wine --> spirit still --> spirit (70%ABV)
- Spirit --> maturation on oak (>3y = whisky)
- Blending & bottling
- Labelling (blended malt/single malt)
Grain whisky
- Mash corn/wheat
- In pressure cooker
- Grist & cereal (corn/wheat) --> mash tun
- Wort is filtered --> cooled to 20 C --> to fermenter --> +yeast
- After fermentation: Make neutral grain spirit 96% (gin/vodka) or make grain whisky max. 94.8% ABV
- Distillation in column stills (multi or coffey)
- Maturation in first fill American oak <700L
- No peat is used
6 Active grain whisky distilleries
- Cameronbridge (Diageo)
- Girvan (W. Grant & Sons)
- Invergordon (Whyte & Mackay)
- North British (owned by Diageo/the Edrington group)
- Starlaw (La Martiniquaise)
- Strathclyde (Pernod Ricard)
Distilling Scotch
- Catch the heart
- Controll the Heads (foreshots) & Tails (feints)
Blended Scotch
- Scotland
- Final flavour matters
- Can be made 4-40 whiskies
- Grain whisky is facilitator for malt whiskies
- Smooth tones helps the malts melt together
- House styles often tradition:
(Johnnie Walker --> peaty tones in blend)
(J&B --> light bc post prohibition American target group)
Blended/ (single) Malt/ Grain
- Single Mailt Scotch Whisky: malt whisky produced at 1 distillery
- Blended Malt Scotch Whisky: a blend of malt whiskies from different Scottish distilleries
- Scotch Grain Whisky: primarily from wheat/corn with small % barley malt grist
- Blended Scotch Whisky: blend of grain & malt whisky
- Blended Grain or Single Grain Whisky
Scotch whisky regions
Grain whisky is made all over Scotland, mostly in lowlands
- Highlands
- Islay
- Islands
- Lowland
- Campbeltown
- Speyside (most distilleries)
Characteristics:
Highlands Whisky
- Most famous: Dalmore & Glenmorangie
- Number of distilleries: >25
- Typical flavours: Fruit cake, malt, oak, heather, dried fruit & smoke
Speyside Whisky
- Most famous: Macallan, Dalwhinnie, Glenlivet & Glenfiddich*
- Number of distilleries: >60
- Typical flavours: Apple, vanilla, oak, malt, nutmeg & dried fruit
Lowlands Whisky
- Most famous: Auchentoshan & Glenkichie
- Number of distilleries: <5
- Typical flavours: Grass, honeysuckle, cream, toffee, toast & cinnamon
Campbeltown Whisky
- Most famous: Glengyle & Springbank
- Number of distilleries: <5
- Typical flavours: Brine, smoke, dried fruit, vanilla & toffee
Islay Whisky
- Most famous: Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Lagavulin & Bruichladdich
- Number of distilleries: 8
- Typical flavours: Seaweed, brine, carbolic soap, apple, smoke & kippers
Island Whisky
- Most famous: Highland Park, Talisker & Jura
- Number of distilleries: <10
- Typical flavours: Smoke, Brine, Oil, Black Pepper & Honey
Irish Whisky
- Earlier than Scotch
- Unpeated malt (kiln fired by gas)
- Only Connemara uses peated malt
- Also use of unmalted barley --> single pot still whiskey
- Pot stills & column stills
- Ageing= > 3 years (usual 5-8)
- Wood new, old, ex bourbon/cherry
- Only whiskey that is distilled 3x also in combi (e.g. 2x pot & 1x column)
USA
- Straight whiskey: 80-110 proof, >1year in new charred oak (any grain)
- Straight Bourbon: <160 proof, >51% corn + any grain (rye&barley malt), new charred oak
- Corn whiskey: >80% corn, new uncharred or reused oak
- Sour mash whiskey
- Rye whiskey: <51% rye
- American Blended: 20% straight + neutral spirit, max 80 proof
Tennessee whiskey
- Same as straight Bourbon
- Only Tennessee
- Mash at least 51% single grain (usually corn)
- Prior to ageing white dog must be filtered through sugar maple wood charcoal (Lincoln Country Process)
- After wood ageing
Bourbon
- Can be made anywhere in USA
- May be bottled right after distilling
- Mash bill to include each type of cereal other than corn
- Corn is cooked at high temp. Other cereal (rye) added and malted barley for enzymes
- Mash to fermenter has to include at least 25% backset
- Fermentation with own yeast per distellery
- Distillation of mash in single column still (aka beerstill) --> mash fed on top --> steam at bottom
- Ageing in charred new american white oak (straight bourbon only)
- Min. 2 years (no topping up)
- Spirit off still not higher than 80% ABV
- Spirit in barrel must age at <62.5% ABV
Canadian Whisky
- Mostly rye based (other corn, rye malt & barley)
- Neutral grain whisky (base whisky 95%) is mixed with more flavourful whisky. Matured separately
- A distiller can add up to 9.09% other imported mature liquors (sherry, caramel)
- Wood used and unused, ex bourbon, sherry, brandy
Japanese Whisky
- Based on Scotch mixed with grain spirits
- Now high end & highly priced
- Malted barley (also peated)
- Pot still
- Further corn & wheat and malted barley --> column/Coffey
- Addition of 'koji' culture/yeast used in sake
- No exchange in whisky between Japanese distilleries
- Wood: Used, american, sherry, japanese, mizunara oak (small amounts only)
Tequila
Characteristics
- Aguamiel after cooking pinas
- Cooked pinas crushed
- Fermentation juice
- 2x distillation continuous or potstill
- 52/53% ABV
- Jalisco state >51% blue agave
- Outside appellation: Mezcal
Classifications:
- Muy Anejo (3y barrels)
- Anejo (1-3y barrels)
- Reposado (2mo-1y oak)
- Gold/Oro/Joven: oak matured or caramel tinting
Silver/plata: unaged
Mezcal
Characteristics
- Agave from Oaxaca
- Roasted --> smokey
- Distilled 1x
- Worm
- Usually unaged
Rum
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Production
- Sugar cane pressed & boiled (juice)
- Sugar crystals removed
- Left: molasses diluted & fermented
- Distillation: Column still (light, short) or Pot still (heavy, long, complex process)
- Maturation
Maturation:
- White rum (normally no ageing, sometimes short and filtered)
- Pot still rum need ageing
- Bourbon barrels (some cognac rhum agricole)
- Tropical ageing (high oak extraction)
- Color both from maturation and/or caramel
Gin
Characteristics
- Flavoured neutral spirit (juniper)
- Agricultural base
- 96% ABV
- Sugar or starch
- Vapour passes through botanicals/carter head or botanicals direct into spirit to be distilled
Definitions:
- Jenever: Dutch gin
- (Compounded) gin: natural or artificial flavours added to alcohol, colouring & sweeteners allowed
- Distilled gin: redistilled neutral alcohol with artificial or natural flavouring. After distilling allowed: add more ethanol, flavouring, colouring, sweetener
- London (dry) gin: still by (re)distilling high quality ethanol to min. 70% abv, natural flavouring. After allowed to add ethanol.
- Plymouth: not protected product(IGT)
- American gin: 40% ABV min., redistilled with added juniper and other extracts
Pairing
Emotional tasting
- Eating & drinking habit
- Memories associated with the taste
- Moment of the day
- Location
- Company
- Image
- Age
- 'Learning' to appreciate
Technical tasting
- Sight (eyes)
- Hearing (ears)
- Smell (nose)
- Touch (mouth)
- Taste (mouth)
Flavour styles
- Contracting: mouth feel rough/astringent, e.g. dry, sour. acidic
- Flavour richness: high to low level
- Coating: mouth feel, e.g. creamy
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