Heads, Hearts & Tailsa still house you can run Whyarium ↗
01234BAR 20406080100°CNo 2 COLDWARM SPIRIT SAFE FORESHOTS SPIRIT FEINTSHEAT

One trick, done in copper

Every spirit on earth starts as something weak: a beer of barley, a wine of grapes, a ferment of cane or cooked agave, rarely stronger than 10%. Distilling does not make alcohol. It sorts it. Warm the wash and the alcohol, which boils more easily than water, leaves first and richest; cool that vapour and it runs back as a stronger liquid.

The still above is a spirit still: the second of the two pot stills of a malt whisky distillery. Its charge, called low wines, has already been through the wash still once and stands at about 25%. What runs off is new make, clear as water, at around 70%. The stillman's whole art is deciding when to start keeping it and when to stop.

  1. Foreshots. The first minutes bring the most volatile compounds: acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate, sharp and solventy.
  2. Spirit. The heart of the run: clean, fruity, strong, slowly falling in strength.
  3. Feints. As the alcohol in the pot runs out, heavy, oily fusel alcohols take over.
  4. Again. Foreshots and feints are not thrown out: they go back into the next charge.
1FermentationThe Wash

Yeast turns sugar into alcohol and gas. Where the sugar comes from: malted barley, corn, grapes, cane, agave.
2Vapour & liquidWhy Spirit Rises First

Alcohol and water boil together, but the vapour is always richer in alcohol. Drag a mixture across the boiling curve.
3The cutHeads, Hearts & Tails

What comes over first, what comes last, and why the first drops are thrown away. Plus the truth about methanol.
4Plates & refluxThe Column

Stack the boil-and-condense step on plates and a still runs forever and reaches 95%. Add plates, change the reflux.
5Oak, char & timeThe Cask

A clear spirit goes into charred oak and comes out amber and smaller. Age a cask in three climates.
6Styles on a mapA World of Spirits

Twelve spirits, a dozen raw materials and stills: from Scotch to baijiu, tequila to shochu.
7Same trick, other tradesBeyond the Glass

Rose oil, liquid air and crude oil: the same separation by boiling point runs half of industry.

Twelve spirits, one principle

Scotch malt whiskymalted barleyIrish whiskeymalted & unmalted barleyBourboncorn (at least 51%)Japanese whiskymalted barley & grainCognac & brandywhite wine grapesRummolasses or cane juiceTequilablue agaveMezcalmany species of agaveGinneutral spirit + juniperVodkagrain or potatoesBaijiusorghumShochu & awamorisweet potato, barley, rice