The Big Absinthe Thread

FullySilenced

Snagged this recipe from HD was originally posted by Nigel, had a good thread and the recipe looks like it would work.

As follows:

500 g Wormwood
600 g Green Anise
400 g Fennel
100 g Coriander
 50 g Angelica
500 g Star Anise
 10 L of 85% Ethanol

All of the herbs ground to their finest and are put in my 5 gallon still and macerated at 120°F for 24 hours.

A 1 oz sample is drawn from the macerate and water is added. if it does not turn milky white the batch is macerated longer.

After maceration is complete the batch is cut with 3 liters of tails from all of the previous batches and then distilled and 2 liters water. I then I collect 10 liters of distillate, and continue to collect tails until I get about 3 liters which is added to the next batch.

The distillate is ready to be colored. For coloring I take 1 liter of distillate and add:

10 g Artemesia Pontica
10   Cardamon Pods
10 g Hyssop
10 g Melissa

They are all added to 1 liter mason jar and heated in a pan of water to about 150°F for about 5 minutes and taken out and cooled slowly. The herbs are then strained and added to the distillate. The reason why I only color 1 liter is because if you color all 10 you will get grally foggy absinthe that looks like crap. this way you get very clear beautiful absinthe. I then bottle it and store it upright.

Thanks

FS

P.S. This was the original thread, has some nice photos of the finished product in the thread.

Sunshine

all good, but I really would not use tails. at all.

FullySilenced

So tails add complexity and depth when added in the correct proportions... like in some rums...

Same can be said for Heads on some fruit distills... like pears...

Smaug

Early tails can be quite good. Same as late heads. Especially when pot stilling.

Zuliero

Exactly, and the evidence of that is not only in the mouthfeel, the creamy feeling, but also quite visual with absinthe, as the louche is more opaque generations after generations, untill it reaches the equilibrium. Pint said on a topic on AD (about adding body to your drink I think...) that he estimates 3 gen to reach this equilibrium for whisky , and I have observed the same with absinthe too... This process is very well described in old distillation manuals of the 1800's (Duplais, Brevans, Roret...).

punkin

The tails are cut back out again and added to the next charge.

Sunshine

@Punkin: this is also common with our distillers here. But more and more pros don't use tails for anything any more. We were at a distilling company last week, the guy was 4 times distiller of the year from Destillata. He swears, that tails are not worth using, and you only pile up the bad stuff. This is said by ALL really good pros and by the teachers at the university, too. (But hey, people also thought not long ago, that a good yeast is waste of money. Now they know it better.) Cutting is an art, so cutting near to the end or the heads can be good for taste, but it is a small gap between genius and madness, they say...but, in the end the result counts.

SDeurope

Common understanding is now to not add tails to the next charge, but collect tails and make it an all tails run from time to time if at all. A lot of professionals just skip tails altogether for it being not worth the time and energy. The result of an all tails run often is not even considered good enough to make liquor (the flavored stuff with sugar).

punkin

The things you learn at school Eh?

Lloyd

I personally seldom distill into the tails anymore and whenever I do I regret it because it makes my still stink. But only because my feedstock is different than most folks, the booze here is very cheap but needs to be run through a proper still to get to the hearts. Fruit and sugar are many times more expensive than booze where I live so one takes advantage of what is available.

The process mentioned above of adding back the feints (heads and tails) to the next run is a time honored tradition with all of the big-time scotch and brandy distilleries. Zillion dollar distilleries including Chivas does it. I'd probably do it too if my still was setup with a proper CIP and if my feedstock was more precious.

But I only distill a little for my needs and as gifts to a very few friends so collecting and storing faints isn't practical, at least to me.

Conversely, if I'd labored long and hard over a hand crafted ferment and was repeating the process over multiple ferments and distillations I'm positive that feints would play a more important part in my recipe protocol.

As someone that has had many successful UJSSM (faux bourbon) generations where not only the feints but also a portion of the stillage (backset) was added back to the next generation can attest to - there IS a flavor profile that is not only desirable but that cannot be had by any other way.

I'd say that if it is single run, with a desire to capture only the best from a single ferment then slopping back tails is probably unnecessary. But slopping back adds brand consistency from batch to batch. To me, both methods are OK.
A vodka maker may want to distance himself as far as possible from the feints but a rum maker might benefit from slopping back.

Sunshine

difference is: whisky is aged for many years, that's smoothens out the tails, but with shortly aged spirits this cannot work. That's why some products like Tequilas or cheap Whisky come with headache... Many hobby distillers use the tails, because they can't believe, that the hearts is all they get. (And because everyone does)

Smaug

Also consider the equipment and run strategy. Naturally if one is running high RR the compressed heads & tails will be less appealing as the flavor will be far more concentrated. Pot stilling will be far more forgiving.

Lloyd

@Smaug said: Also consider the equipment and run strategy. Naturally if one is running high RR the compressed heads & tails will be less appealing as the flavor will be far more concentrated. Pot stilling will be far more forgiving.

So true.
The Master Distiller (you or me, as if I'm making my own then I'm the Master) must decide the variables that we allow into the final cut. That is all inclusive from the ingredients selected for the ferment and how it is exactly produced and fermented, to racking into the boiler and with what, if any, faints or adjuncts that are added.
Is it art or science?

I can say my Grandma had some dishes that she was good at and if that woman stuck her finger in the pot, swirled it around and took a taste, and said it was good then it was very good.

A chef must taste the food before it is served else it means nothing.

@Zuliero says the absinthe flavor matures after 3 generations of adding the tails cut.
I figure he is as close to Grandma's finger as I'll ever get.

Moonshine

@Lloyd said: Is it art or science?

I'd say something between art, science and madness! :D

Zuliero

@Lloyd I wouldn't phrase it as "matures" but it works for lack of a better word. The process involved in absinthe production would be a mix of a gin and a whisky process. Gin comes to mind beccause we start with an already rectified base as an ingredient (so the heads and tails on that one have already been put away @Sunshine) to flavour it with botanicals. So when you distill it, the fores and heads are close to non existant anyway. Now when you reach the tails, you are not looking to separate bad smelling esters (like if coming from a fermented batch, as you already done that too by building your alcohol base) but you're trying to separate essential oils from the botanicals. They have different soluble capabilities in water and ethanol, so you have the ones that you suck up with the vapours and the ones you let down in the boiler.

This is the category that gets interresting, and relates to the whisky process. You have your nasty oils bonded with a lot of nice ones that you desperately want in you final product but can't get in first generation, hence it's weak louche. By adding the oils (your backset) to the subsequent batch, one after another, you are able to retrieve more and more of the good ones, as they are more free to go up the neck/column of the still. And you have a better, denser louche, along with a creamier mouthfeel. And that happens in as little as 3 generations and tends to reach an equilibrium, as your alcohol vapours reach their saturation point regarding these oils. You can put more it won't carry over. Of course this is where the type and shape of still comes into play, as a swan neck still will produce a lighter product compared to a mauresque type of head. As explained on AD about whisky or bourbon, I am sure that it is somewhat related to PH, and the proof allowing better separation (less than 27%alc? is this hydroseparation?) but chemistry never was my strong side.

And great absinthe is also aged in oak barrels, and you know there is no shortage of them here...

Sunshine

@Zuliero: this explains for me perfectly. I personally think, that cleaner products without actual tails will be the future. Even Austrian Whisky, who is cut very exactly has made international awards - on eye height with the Scotch or Irish products which are aged much longer to get rid of unwanted flavors. I really would like to sample some of your products, perhaps you can make it happen somehow!

Zuliero

@Sunshine, there are light and heavy body absinthes as there are whiskies, so everyone can pick the product that suits their own personal taste. I personaly like heavy body drinks (Lagavulin etc...) Feel free to contact me in private to arrange something before the end of the week.

SYN

This is the thread I was lookin for.... As we're making absinthe in Asia, we do things a little differently. Well, OK, perhaps it is the island where we live specifically that makes it unique. No electricity...no running water. Old school? Not since I hooked up some solar to run the cooling water pump... before that it was all by hand, up to 2000 liters a day. Anyway, as far as the tails go, or don't go in some cases, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I'm using the gin basket hooked up to my final pot still run, which gives me loads of options for blending, and that's the key. All year I have been experimenting with adding different herbs to the baskets to different parts of the run. That way I can isolate different flavors and aromas, the different collections add up to a pallet from which blending occurs. Of course the tails would already be added prior to the run, so it's in there.... or it isn't. A happy accident of employing the gin basket is that I can likewise collect from the bottom of the basket.... more color for the pallet in the next run... but I can choose the herbs that are collected from that, making the all-or-nothing a little less daunting and more fun. Carry on.

Lloyd

Da man himself has finally chimed in :)

The fluid that collects in the bottom of the GB4, to me, is some of the best flavor but is "ugly" with color and tiny botanical bits. How do you deal with this?
A quick filter to get the bits out is easy but is the off-color a problem?

Note that I have much less experience than you and much could be solved by not crushing the botanicals so fine - in my case its not me crushing or grinding them but only what I could find.

Grip

@Lloyd - I have been wondering what to do with my ever filling barrel of brown fluid from the GB4 (from several gin runs). What do you think would be the result if I filled the boiler with heads, tails and the brown stuff and did a vodka run using the column. Do you think I would end up with a flavoured vodka. Or do you think that a pot still configuration might give us a whole new thing?

I'm also interested that you talk about 'crushing' your botanicals. I've never done that just used them whole (except for the fresh blueberries that we sun dry slightly crushed). Never crushed, never macerated, never put botanicals in the boiler - am I missing something here?

punkin

You'll certainly get a flavoured vodka, whether it'll be a flavour you desire is the question.

One of these is very handy for these situations...

Lloyd

@Grip if I remember correctly you have a small pot still. It certainly would be a special, limited edition gin. And I'd put all the gin feints in the boiler too. If you decide that your small pot still would always be used for the 'limited edition' then you might consider adding some botanicals to the boiler for extra oomph.
With all that flavor already in the brown liquid I'd think it would be a shame to go for vodka.
Not knowing anything about gin during my first few GB4 runs I thought I was supposed to crush the bots but since then I'm told its not necessary.