Alcohol Distillation and Its Impact on Architecture

Alcohol distillation has been around for millennia. It’s what gives spirits such as bourbon, vodka and whiskey their distinctive tastes, and while its specifics vary greatly between distillations processes it generally follows this model: heating liquid until alcohol and water separate out.

Remove water, and what remains is pure ethanol. While you could produce beer and wine using just this, distilling requires considerable skill – thus illegalizing home distilling (though some dare attempt it anyway). But even without access to a copper pot still for distilling your own spirits, distillation principles are relatively straightforward.

Distillation works through the difference in boiling points between water and ethyl alcohol, making use of their differing boiling points as the basis of distillation. Heating liquid with higher concentrations of alcohol causes its vapor to have lower boiling points than that of water in it, enriching it further in ethanol content. As distillation progresses, more alcohol will become concentrated into each condensate created; each subsequent condensate will contain even more ethanol-enriched condensates than its predecessor.

Vapors that don’t contain desirable ethanol will return to the bottom of the column and be re-vaporized, known as reflux, in order to separate out heavier, less desirable congeners. Reflux levels and plate numbers will influence which congeners remain, and how much ethanol is produced.