How I tried to make cognac from a ready-made set, where you just had to add alcohol – I tell you what happened in the end

Despite the fact that half the country was in self-isolation, the families of our clan decided to celebrate the New Year together at a ski resort near Moscow. As usual, everyone gave gifts to each other, and my relatives, knowing that I was fond of distillation of alcohol, decided to give me a set for making alcoholic beverages.

My relatives not only gave this set as a present, but bought a crowbar (a small crowbar) for it and forced me to open this box myself. Not everyone knew that I grew up in the countryside and was able to open such boxes with my bare hands, but they filmed a video and sent it to social networks.

Distillation of alcohol, in general, does not require a lot of time, but since I am fond of making cognacs and whiskey in oak barrels in an ordinary apartment, everyone is waiting for my drinks for a year and even more.

The story was shared by blog subscriber Eugene.

Why I decided to make alcohol myself

So it turns out that my cousins ​​​​got tired of waiting, and they gave me a set of ready-made mixtures, so that I just filled them with alcohol, and they received the coveted drinks from me as quickly as possible. It turns out that this gift is more for them than for me.

The set itself.

But there was nothing to do and I had to deal with these kits.

In the box, along with the mixtures, there was immediately a bottle with a cork, a breathalyzer and even a faceted glass. The whole box was occupied by foam pellets so that the glass would not break. Everything will work, and I even use foam plastic in an easy chair filled with foam balls, which is already noticeably “tired”.

Set.

I tormented the family for a long time with the cost of the set, but they did not admit it, I had to look for it on the Internet. Such a box costs about 6 rubles, and a crowbar for opening it costs 000 rubles.

What ingredients are required

The set included the following pieces and mixes:

• cognac sticks;
• chips for cognac in Latgale;
• ginger-lemon tincture;
• a set of herbs “Huntsman”;
• spiced whiskey;
• Becher liqueur.

I decided to start with what I already know: medium toasted oak sticks.

To make brandy you need:

• alcohol – 0,3 liters 96,5 degrees;
• distilled water – 0,2 liters;
• 4 sticks of medium roast.

Oak bars in a set.

Immediately after the holidays, I returned home and started making “cognac”.

The cooking process

To get alcohol, you must first prepare sugar mash. To do this, tap water is passed through an ordinary home filter, such as the Barrier, and poured into a vat of 10 liters. I heat 1 liter of water to a boil so that the entire volume is warm.

Then I pour 5 kg of sugar into the water and stir it thoroughly. After that, I pour sweet water into a separate jar and pour special wine yeast into it.

A week later, the mash is ready and I pass it through the distiller for the first time, getting the alcohol of the first distillation of about 60 degrees. To obtain pure alcohol, I rebuild the distiller into a rectifier and distill the resulting mash. At the output, I get pure alcohol 96,5 degrees.

The cost of the resulting alcohol, with a volume of 2,5 liters, is:

To get brandy from oak planks, I poured 3 liters of alcohol, 0,3 liters of distilled water into a 0,2-liter jar and put 8 whole planks of medium firing.

What result did I get

After 1,5 months of infusion, the drink turned into a beautiful light brown color.

Brandy on oak planks.

In theory, I know that if you keep the raw materials on the planks longer, you can get the so-called plinth – a drink with such a strong taste of wood that it is impossible to drink. So I poured the brandy into a separate bowl.

If you describe what kind of drink it tasted like, then I would not advise anyone to do this. Of course, there is a distant aroma of cognac, but since I am seriously engaged in the production of cognac for myself and understand the tastes, I will categorically say – this is not cognac!

I didn’t get a skirting board, but it was impossible to drink it. And usually I use this tincture for topping up in oak barrels, in which cognac is infused for months.

Due to the “share of angels”, the volume of liquid in the barrel can decrease by the end of storage with losses of up to 5%. And it is this volume that I add to it not earlier than 2 months before opening the barrel.

Have you tried making your brandy from oak sticks? Maybe you did something better? I will talk about other ingredients in the gift in the following articles.

*Alcohol abuse is bad for your health!