Vodka is made from fermented wheat, potatoes, etc, right?
So how come it doesn’t taste like anything other than pure alcohol diluted with water? Is there any acutal difference? I really have no idea how the brewing process for any type of alcoholic drink actually works.
http://www.allaboutbeer.com/homebrew/secondar.htmlTry here
If you ever decide you want to give it a try, pick up “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing” by Charlie Papazian. ITs pretty much the homebrewers bible.
Distilled alcohol is made by, in a nutshell, distilling a type of wine or beer.
So to make Vodka (once again in a nutshell) put potatoes and yeast into a vessel, allow to ferment, remove potatoes, distill remaining liquid, Vodka!
Its a little more technical than that but not much, people have been making wine and beer for thousands of years, so it dosen’t require advanced chemistry. You can do it too.
*note making your own distilled alcohol is illegal, wine and beer you can make up to 50 callons a year w/o a permit.
The reason why beer and whiskey have a certain flavor is because the grain they’re made from (like barley) is first allowed to sprout, thus developing the natural sugars. Then the sprouted grain is dried and toasted, just a little. That sprouted, toasted grain is what’s actually fermented and distilled to make beer and whiskey.
With vodka, though, the potatoes or grain have had nothing done to them, so there’s nothing really to give it flavor. Taters and wheat don’t have much natural flavor anyway.
Doesn’t that depend on the particular localities laws? I’ve never looked it up, but I have been told that where I live it is legal to make your own distilled alcohol, however it is illegal to sell it. I could be wrong though.
IIRC the main issue is tax evasion and BATF as a federal agency isn’t going to omit Texas from distilled alcohol taxation.
My boss used to work for Christian Brothers in a brandy warehouse. He told me at one point that it was too easy to fudge if it was taxed as it was sold so they got hit by the batch as it was produced, made it much easier for them to track each 10000 gallon batch rather than barrels or cases of finished product. Supposedly it ended up being better thatway for everyone except the warehouse workers since if a barrel was damaged and product spilled there was no way to recoup the taxes on the lost product.
Not to mention, the word vodka literally means, “little water”.