Think of your favorite pours. At home, it might be that one bottle that you always go back to. The color might show hues of caramel and the flavors bring to life old memories. Or your go-to’s at your watering hole; that one down the block with that incredible cocktail list. You always walk in with a big grin on your face, as your favorite bartender greets you, and you take a long gander at the wall of sublime spirits finding that one.
Likely, you are gazing at a variety of whiskey, tequila, gin, vodka, and maybe even some moonshine. Your anticipation builds as you await that first sip. In those moments, have you ever been struck with an overwhelming curiosity; who invented the spirit that has given me this euphoric experience?
Photo: The KOVAL 5000 L Custom Hybrid Potstill from Kothe in Chicago, IL
A Short History of Distilling
Spirits are created through a process called distilling. Distillation comes from the Latin ‘de-stillare’ meaning drip or trickle down. Its origins date back as early as 2000 BC in China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia to create essences, perfumes and to embalm the dead for cosmetic or spiritual purposes. In the 4th century, famed philosopher Aristotle suggested that spirit distillation could be achieved using seawater.
However, many historians attribute distilling to Egyptian alchemists around AD 200 and 9th century Arab alchemists. Either way, civilizations around the world have used the distilling process to develop some form of alcoholic beverages for centuries. While their processes are now antiquated, the spirits industry still utilizes elements of their fundamentals.
What is Distilling?
Let’s start with the basics. Distilling is the process used to separate mixtures into base elements. Okay, let’s try to make that even simpler. Alcohol distilling is the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials. Yeast gets added to a mixture of water and a mash (mixture of grains) containing a fermentable organic substance (also known as a wort). While the yeast does its thing, the basic ingredient’s sugars are converted into alcohol.
Distilled spirits, better known as liquor, are alcoholic beverages distilled from grains, fruits, or fermentable ingredients. These include brandy, gin, rum, tequila, whiskey, vodka, and more.
If your primary ingredients are grains like corn, wheat, or rye, you will get a spirit like gin, whiskey, or vodka. If you’re hoping for rum, you will need fermented molasses. For mezcal and tequila, you will need the extracted juices of the agave plant. If you happen to have some fermented potatoes, you can also distill vodka.
Four Steps of Spirit Distillation
The overall process of spirit distilling can be summarized in four simple steps:
1. Fermentation:
To make alcohol, you need to ferment. That means mixing sugar, water, yeast, and yeast nutrients. The yeast will then convert the sugar to alcohol. The three basics of fermentation are introducing sugar to liquid and yeast, the yeast processes the sugar into alcohol, and after some time the yeast stops producing alcohol as the sugar has been fully consumed.
2. Distillation
To get a high alcohol by volume (ABV) alcohol, you need to physically separate alcohol from water using evaporation and condensation, also known as distilling. Once a liquid fermentation is complete, the liquid is then heated in a still. The alcohol is boiled off and the drinkable alcohol is collected.
3. Filtration
Next, you run the spirit through a column of carbon mixture little by little. This filtration process does two important things like removing off flavors and smoothing out the overall taste and flavor. Filtering removes the impurities.
4. Find the Strength and Flavor
Once the alcohol is filtered, you water the spirit down to the desired drinking strength. There are several additions you can make to improve or alter the spirit. Once you have identified the base spirit, you can make various spirits from the same batch!
In Closing
From 800 BCE when the Chinese began distilling rice beer to 2025 with around 2,200 distilleries just in the United States, it is clear that the history of distilling is rich and ever evolving. While we barely scratched the surface of the complex history of distilling, we can agree that it is an arduous process that creates the spirits we love to enjoy. Through the fermentation process to the filtration, the history of distilling is as unique as it is fascinating.
