Dave Sheurich: We decided to have triple distillation. We’re the only distillery in the world that makes Bourbon using Pot Stills and we’re one of five distilleries in the world that uses a triple distillation method. The other four is Auchentoshan Scotch Distilling in Glasgow and the three others distilleries.
So we purposely created our own niche if you will with a triple pot still product. Now, remember earlier we talk about pot stills and why pot stills. Pot stills were prevalent part of provision. Everybody use pot stills. Pot Stills are the things you think about when you talk about distilling back in the hollows of Kentucky in Tennessee and you see these little vessels with little curly cues coming up. Those are pot stills.
They’re batch vessels. What that means is you put a certain amount out of mash into the bowl of the still and cook it off and if you’re cooking off the alcohol. The alcohol boils and lowers the temperature than water so as you’re heating this mash, what we saw in the fermenters, the alcohol is coming off first.
This is called a beer still. These stills are made in Rothes, Scotland by a guy named Richard Forsyth and this still is made to separate alcohol from match. So, we’ll put 2500 gallons of mash into here, shut off all the valves, open up the steam valve and vaporize the alcohol. It goes up the goose neck across to a condenser and the condenser has cold water running through it a jacket so when the vapors heat that cold water, it condenses back into a liquid then the liquid flows across this pipe and then to the spirit safe and this is how we judge the proof or the strength of the alcohol and we take a glass and we’ll separate it or smell it to see how its coming, what the finish product is going to be.
So with what comes off this still it goes into receiver and let’s call that receiver number one. And there are three tanks behind this stone wall. So what comes off this still is goes into the receiver number one. After this still is finished, what’s collected in receiver number one is use to charge still number two and we call that the high line still.
The beer still, high line stills and spirit still so in still number two we did the same thing. There’s no more mash involved now. It’s just clear liquid and we’re refining and what we’re doing is we’re taking all of the alcohol that’s coming off still number two and collecting it in receiver number two until it gets down to 50 or 30 proof. We were always sending the best forward and what are called heads and tails back for re-distillation.
So it’s a step of refinement and the trick is to do it in such a way that you don’t loose your esters and your flowery components that are very evasive. It’s very difficult to keep them from vaporizing in the atmosphere. So we have to distill very slowly first to capture those esters and those are your really flowery, really fruity flavors.
So, with the first still it comes off and an aggregate proof of 40. The second still comes off at about a 110 proof and the third still comes off at 158 and remember I told you can distill above 160 and call it Bourbon so we’re tiptoeing right up to the definition of the Bourbon without going over that 160 proof sealing and also keeping the esters intact. So it’s a real trick to that.
Female: And I’m curious that actually steps above to 2% or 162%, is it called something different other than not Bourbon?
Dave Sheurich: Here are the definitions. First of all, Bourbon is a whisky and whisky by definition is alcohol that is made from fermented grains and has some bit of 1% corn but, you can take this 158 proof Bourbon and if you distilled it another time it will come out a 160 or 170 that falls into another category. It is called light whiskies and really nobody makes light whiskies because you’re taking out so many of the flavor components that it’s almost a gin or almost vodka.
If you keep distilling it and you take all the congeners out. The congeners are flavors like esters, aromatics and acids. If you remove all those congeners, granule neutral spirits and that’s what Bacchus is made from and if you put juniper berries and coriander seeds, lemonade, lemon, and orange peels and other botanicals in that and distill it off then you have gin.
So, gin and vodka are made out of the same components only distilled in higher proofs.
Female: Now just looking at the shape of your pot?
Dave Sheurich: Pot still.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services