Almost any drink can be made from moonshine. Once I wanted to try to make cognac out of it. This was the first experience, since I prefer whisky, but curiosity got the better of me.
It is worth mentioning that it is impossible to make real cognac from moonshine, since it has a completely different cooking system. Moonshine is distilled mash, cognac is grape alcohol.
If we take for comparison those drinks that are on sale for up to 1 rubles, then at home you can cook better, but a home-made product will still never be compared with elite cognacs.
However, I accepted the challenge: it was interesting for me to compare what I could do with the Hennessy (Hennessy) given to me for my birthday.
Here is a story sent by my subscriber Anatoly.
We drive moonshine, we make the base
In order to “mow down” as much as possible under the cognac base, I used grape mash. I didn’t add any sugar or yeast.
Purely natural product. The main thing is not to wash the grape bunches – there is a specific white coating on the grapes, these are natural yeast colonies.
When the braga finished playing, I overtook her twice. In general, I distill three times, but since my cognac is, in essence, a tincture, there is not much point in this. All I needed was to get alcohol at 45 ° without foreign odors and an unpleasant aftertaste.
In the second distillation, I loaded the steamer with grape leaves and twigs, this should have given an aroma similar to the aroma of grape spirit. But to be honest, nothing has changed.
Tincture is the basis of my cognac
What is cognac? This is grape spirit infused in an oak barrel. If, of course, we are talking about a real drink, and not about what you can buy for 600-700 r / liter.
My foundation
Therefore, oak is indispensable. When the base was ready, I went to the store and bought all the necessary ingredients:
- Sugar.
- Koriandr.
- Carnation.
- Nutmeg.
- Oak bark.
First of all, I mixed all the spices, after crushing them in a mortar. Next, I washed the bark under running cold water and sprinkled it liberally with sugar.
This is necessary to create the so-called caramel effect. After that, the sugar bark is simply poured into a 3 liter jar and poured with moonshine.
Coriander, cloves, nutmeg will need quite a bit. These are quite strong flavors, so a quarter of a teaspoon will be enough.
It took me exactly 100 g of sugar, this is based on 2 liters of moonshine, that is, about 50 g per liter. I did not spare the oak bark, as for me, it is impossible to overdo it.
Infusion
After all the ingredients were added to the moonshine, everything was thoroughly mixed, I covered the jar with an airtight lid and put it in the attic. It’s dark in there, but hot enough to speed up the process of saturation with tannins.
The tincture stood there for a little over two weeks, while every day I thoroughly shook the drink so that all the sugar dissolved, and the oak bark evenly gave color and its properties to alcohol.
I also opened the lid to allow the drink to “breathe”, maybe this is my personal prejudice, but I always do this.
After two weeks, I filtered the resulting tincture through a cotton-gauze filter, separating the bark, sediment and spice residues. The sugar dissolved completely, all the sediment quickly settled on the cotton wool, and at the exit I got a clean, transparent home-made cognac.
my result
Result
My cognac acquired a characteristic oak aroma and flavor, but it is impossible to say that it was real cognac. It was a delicious drink, in its own way a pleasant aftertaste, a delicate aroma, and at the same time a solid fortress.
While Hennessy had a distinct grape flavor, a milder, more pleasant taste and a characteristic oaky effect on the gums.
I made the following conclusion – it is possible to make a delicious drink from moonshine, it will even somewhat resemble cognac, but it will still not work to achieve such a set of tastes and aromas as real elite cognacs.
Way too different cooking methods. Moonshine makes excellent whiskey, tinctures and cocktails. Have you tried making your own homemade cognac?