Alcohol Distillation and Its Impact on Craft Cocktails

Alcohol distillation is a complex and expensive process that requires precision, skill, and expertise similar to winemaking or beerbrewing. Unfortunately, distilling liquor is illegal in the US, while large commercial producers only produce a fraction of total spirits consumed each year – which explains why most cocktail drinkers have never attempted their hand at making their own spirits!

Distillation is essential to craft cocktails; its presence alone makes a craft cocktail. Distilling processes have a large influence over their final products depending on proof and flavor profiles of spirits being distilled.

As an example, higher proof spirits have fewer congeners and thus be lighter in taste, while those made at lower proof levels contain more congeners, giving it richer flavors. To demonstrate this difference, vodka, which is intended to be flavorless, is typically distilled to 94% ABV while bourbon which boasts robust flavors is never distilled beyond 80%.

Distillation’s basic principles are simple: heat a liquid until it vaporizes, then cool its vapor back into a liquid state. The cooler the vapor hits liquid at first contact, the greater its likelihood of condensing back down into wash. As the vapor travels upwards through each plate it gets cooler until heavy molecules condense more readily than light ones and return back down into wash – this phenomenon is known as reflux; and its ratio with respect to energy required is known as the reflux ratio.