Craft distilling: making liquor legally at home

226 Pages·2016·7.849 MB·English

by  Miller, Victoria Redhed

Praise for
CRAFT DISTILLING
Craft Distilling accomplishes the extraordinary task of making the
arcane art form accessible and practical for anyone who can cook
from a recipe. The joy of creating spirits at home is a great incentive
for learning a little chemistry and Victoria makes the chemistry fun!
—Bryan Welch, Mother Earth News , and CEO, B the Change Media
In Craft Distilling, author Victoria Redhed Miller leads us on a won-
derfully intoxicating journey that answers the question of why dis-
till spirits at home with eloquence and clarity that only a passionate
practitioner can offer. With Miller’s help we come to understand just
why it is that most of us can’t legally make spirits for ourselves, and
she makes a wonderful case for why we should be able to do just
that! Set the history aside for a spell and Craft Distilling delves deeply
into the science of alcohol distillation and sets you up with every-
thing from detailed recipes for your favorite liquors and insight
on constructing your own still. Craft Distilling is as important for
dreamers and practitioners as it is for policy makers, and it belongs
on the shelf of everyone who has anything to do with the production
and consumption of distilled spirits.
—Oscar H. Will III, Editorial Director, Mother Earth News
This is one of the most comprehensive books I have seen to date.
This book tells you everything you need to know to become a knowl-
edgeable distiller. The book also has many great recipe’s. I would
highly recommend this book to any new or experienced distiller.
—Mike Haney, Hillbilly Stills

CRAFT DISTILLING
Making Liquor Legally at Home
Victoria Redhed Miller
Copyright © 2016 by Victoria Redhed Miller. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
Cover main image © iStock: Zakharova_Natalia
Printed in Canada. First printing January 2016.
This book is intended to be educational and informative.
It is not intended to serve as a guide. The author and publisher
disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss or risk that may
be associated with the application of any of the contents of this book.
Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Craft Distilling
should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.
To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)
1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com
Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:
New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada
[phone]
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Miller, Victoria Redhed, author
Craft distilling : making liquor legally at home / Victoria
Redhed Miller.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
isbn 978-0-86571-804-3 (paperback). — isbn 978-1-55092-604-0 (ebook)
1. Liquors — Amateurs’ manuals. 2. Distillation — Amateurs’ manuals.
I. Title.
TP597.M54 2016 663'.16 C2015-906495-3
C2015-906496-1
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For David, my wonderful husband and partner in homesteading.
Thank you for being so supportive of all my projects,
for encouraging me to pursue my passions
and for always being available at a moment’s
notice for emergency taste-testing.
Here’s to all who refined their craft
and perfected their skills as home distillers;
may your spirit live on in those of us
aiming for a world of good spirits and sensible rules.

Contents
Foreword,by Gene Logsdon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction: The Accidental Activist . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
1. Why Make Your Own Liquor? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. A Revenooer Walked into a Nanaimo Bar... . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Making Liquor Legally at Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4. The Basic Principles of Distillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5. Building a Small Column Still . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6. Your “Home” Distillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
7. The Economics of Distilling Your Own Liquor . . . . . . . 41
8. Mashing Grains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
9. Fermentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
10. Overview of the Distilling Process and Techniques . . . . 73
11. Rum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
12. Gin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
13. Vodka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
14. Malt Whiskey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
15. Irish Whiskey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
16. Other Kinds of Whiskey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
17. Tequila and Sunchoke Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
18. Don’t Be So Immature: Aging Small-batch Spirits . . . . . 131
vii
viii Craft Distilling
19. Brandy, Liqueurs and Other Excuses
to Spend More Time in the Stillhouse . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
20. Handmade Bitters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
21. Making Your Own Mixers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
22. Putting It All Together: Classic Cocktail Recipes
Featuring Your Homemade Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
23. Other Uses for Your Distillation Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
24. The Farm Distillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
25. The Case for Making Non-commercial Distilling Legal . . 183
26. Let’s Raise the Bar: The Future of True Craft Distilling . . 191
Appendix A: Useful Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Appendix B: Resources for Information on
Distilling in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Appendix C: Sample Record-keeping Form . . . . . . . . . 201
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
FOREWORD
Sanity Finally Comes To
Moonshine Phobia
by Gene Logsdon
Should you be so optimistic as to think you can figure out why
human beings are mostly crazy, study the history of intoxicating
beverages. I do not mean just the miseries that result from drunk-
enness which kills or maims more people and wrecks more families
than war, but the kind of feckless righteousness that really believes
laws and preachments can make liquor disappear. Add to that the
millions of little acts of irrational contradiction that flourish be-
tween the two extremes and you will surely become as convinced
as I am that we are all nuts. More than one kind of intoxication is
involved in the conflict, from hoping to get plastered in a bar to hop-
ing to get one’s name plastered on the pillars of righteous sobriety.
All to no avail. No matter how hard the pious opposition to distilling
alcohol has labored down through the centuries, humans have just
kept right on making the stuff. If brickbats contained sugar, some-
one would have made whiskey out of them by now.
The absurdities in the battle to suppress drinking are endless.
Even after all these centuries of unsuccessful war on distilled spirits,
the word “liquor”, still makes some people cringe, just as the word,
“sex”, does. It is proper enough to say that you have been to the village
tavern, but not the corner bar. Hypocrisy is the name of the game.
ix