The production and use of alcohol is part of human culture, overgrown over the long history of its existence with all sorts of traditions, rituals, rules, etc. At the same time, over time, the technological process of production of strong drinks was improved. In this article we will try to figure out what whiskey, beer and other alcohol are made of.
Whatever the composition of alcoholic beverages, it necessarily includes ethyl alcohol. The traditional way to obtain it is the alcoholic fermentation of organic products - this is how alcohol has been made for thousands of years. With the help of yeast and natural enzymes, carbohydrates that are part of plant materials are converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide. The mash produced during fermentation contains no more than 15% alcohol. After cleaning, you can get young wine or beer from it.
By the way, the latter is one of the oldest drinks invented by people. In ancient Egypt, barley malt was prepared, which, however, differed from the beer we were used to, since hops were not used in its manufacture. This low-alcohol drink was a strained and slightly fermented bread mass.
As for modern brewing, here the situation with how and what beer is made of is as follows. To begin with, barley malt is mixed with hot filtered water. Later, congestion from other cereals is added to it. Further, during the filtration of the grains, wort is obtained, which, in turn, is boiled with hops, which give bitterness to beer. After decanting the hop, the wort cools, yeast is added to it and the resulting mixture is left to ferment. Finally, the young beer is allowed to ripen for several weeks, saturated with carbon dioxide, filtered again, after which the drink is ready to drink.
To obtain alcoholic beverages of greater strength, distillation is necessary. Its discovery is attributed either to the Chinese, then to the Egyptians, or to the Indians, but Europeans were introduced to the technology of distillation of mash, oddly enough as it may seem, by the Arabs.
Acquaintance with the distillation process helps to understand what whiskey, cognac, moonshine, etc. are made of. Since water, as well as products formed during fermentation, have a boiling point other than alcohol , it is possible to separate individual fractions by heating a low-alcohol liquid, which are collected and cooled, again turning into a liquid state. In the production of high-quality alcohol, including whiskey, as a rule, the double distillation method is used in distillation cubes, when directly drinking alcohol is purified from various toxic impurities.
To understand what whiskey is made of, you should take into account the country of its manufacture. The fact is that this alcoholic drink, which has a unique aroma, shades from pale yellow to brown, and also a strength of 40-50% (although it can reach up to 60%), differs in terms of raw materials depending on the region of production.
Countries contesting each other's right to be considered the birthplace of whiskey are Ireland and Scotland. In the latter, in the production of this type of alcohol, barley and barley malt are used as raw materials. The result is a drink called Scotch. In Ireland, rye (Irish whiskey) is added to the malt. In the countries of North America - Canada and the USA - corn, wheat or rye are used as raw materials for whiskey. In Japan, where the production of this alcohol began relatively recently, millet and corn are used, adding rice and other grains in limited quantities.
The taste characteristics of the drink, along with what whiskey is made of, are influenced by many other factors - from the quality of water and grain to the malting and filtration methods, barrel features, aging time, etc. But in general, in the production of this alcohol there are two main approaches - “Irish” and “Scottish”. As part of the latter, peat is used when drying the malt, as a result of which the drink acquires a specific smoky taste. For the "Irish" direction drying in ovens and triple distillation are characteristic, which give whiskey special softness.
As you can see, alcohol production today is a well-developed industry that has a rich history and traditions and has developed many technological subtleties and tricks to produce truly high-quality products.