Alcohol Distillation and Its Connection to Terpenes

Alcohol distillation is an intricate process requiring much skill and intuition. Distillation has been around since medieval times; today a basic still consists of cooling pipes to absorb any heat generated by alcohol vapors. After condensing into alcohol vapors, they’re collected in a long container known as a receiver for further distillation. Distillate from this step may even be recycled and refined further down the line. At this stage, it’s also possible to experiment with adding new flavourings if necessary; provided the distillate doesn’t contain any undesirable components – like foreshots (the very first vapors that come off of the still) and heads (containing higher alcohols as well as off-tasting congeners such as methanol, acetaldehyde or acetone which has an unpleasant paint thinner-like aroma), these must be discarded before proceeding further with production.

Hearts – made up of ethanol and non-toxic congeners – is what produces drinkable spirits such as vodka, whisky and gin. For even greater enjoyment producers often undergo another round of distillation known as fine distillation to increase its taste and aroma.

Unfortunately, distillation leads to the destruction of terpenes. As alcohol vapor is heated up and molecules become more volatile and separated from their environments; this phenomenon is known as the vapor-liquid equilibrium. Terpenes become easily carried away with this volatile mixture, and can only be retained by using low air pressure or solvent solutions; though using solvent solutions in small batch situations may prove more challenging.