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BREWER’S NEWS Issue no 2 “For makers of fine spirits, beers & wines” May 2005 Editorial The Craft of Creating You have probably noticed a the Perfect Whisky few changes at your local home brew store. The $60 The goal of creating a whisky in the The kit contains 15 flavour notes and million Australian and New style of the great Scottish distilleries is additives including peat, oak, sherry, Zealand home brewing industry now a step closer for the home grain and fruity esters plus a recipe is undergoing a metamorphosis. brewer with the launch of the book and measuring equipment Whisky Profile Kit from Still Spirits. that will make up to 21 litres of Brewers are making spirits as different whiskeys. The book well as looking for premium The whisky kit, which has all the contains approximate formulations wine kits, while discerning whisky flavour notes, will allow the drinkers are demanding the of famous brands and detailed home brewer to experiment with descriptions of all flavour notes. highest quality drops possible. flavours and create a drop with their The great news is that the own distinct taste and style. industry is well positioned to deliver on all these demands. New innovations in spirit making will allow whisky makers to experiment and create their own flavour profiles, just as brewers have been doing for years with malt, hops and yeast. Not only are there plenty of new quality spirit and liqueur flavours, there is also an exciting new beer release. Australia’s brewing giants are taking notice and one of the great breweries has released their icon beer into the home brew market. This all makes for an exciting time in the industry. In Canada it is a very different story where the premium wine kit market A totally new, revolutionary and unique product for all whisky drinkers dwarfs the entire Australian home brew industry, with sales in excess of $350 million. The Here are some of the components flavour market is so huge that that you can use to make your own Cedar Oak a drier oak flavour Canada’s largest winery, distinctive, personalised whiskies. found in Irish whiskey Winexpert, does not make Oak Cask distinctively rounded Distillers caramel imparts a finished wine at all and only oak cask flavour makes wine kits. warm golden colour Sweet Vanillin often found in The kit also contains 4 whisky base Many Australian and Kiwi barrel aged whiskeys brewers are experimenting with profiles. Peat smoke Strong almost these quality wine kits. It is a For more detail on the kits and pungent flavour prominent in dynamic and innovative time recipes, visit www.stillspirits.com. and the DIY liquor market is Scottish whiskies booming as a result. Astringent Notes adds bite to Whisky Profile kits will be available the whisky in your local home brew specialist in Most importantly, your local May. home brew store is the place Fruity Esters adds a great deal to find these products and the to the whisky bouquet best advice. Cereal Notes grainy flavours Still Spirits’ home market is New Zealand where We hope you enjoy your next distilling at home is legal. Because it is not essential for grain-based spirits currently legal in Australia, Sill Spirits’ flavors will home-made masterpiece. Carob notes chocolate grain blend equally well with commercially produced and vodka or other neutral spirit. very rigid as the kits must maintain After the quality control checks are Where did consistency so consumers can make passed, the juices and concentrates repeat purchasing decisions. After the are blended into the formulations grapes are harvested, they are taken that make up the different kits. wine kits to a winery, sulphited and crushed. When the formulation is finally At this point white and red grape adjusted and approved, the must is come from? processing diverges. White grapes are pressed, and the juice is pumped into a settling tank. The first wine kits were probably Enzymes are added to break down used in ancient Mesopotamia. Early pectins and gums, to assist clearing inhabitants would store a mixture of after fermentation. Bentonite is grains and dried dates and when added and the tank is crash-chilled they needed them, would crumble below freezing. This helps precipitate this concentrated source of sugar into grape solids, and prevents spoilage. water and allow it to ferment with the natural yeast on the dates, When the juice is almost clear, it is producing the first wine kit. roughly filtered, the sulphite is adjusted. Some say that the practice became common during the United States The crushed red grapes are pumped Stringent laboratory testing is done at all pro- prohibition era. Californian grape through a chiller to a maceration duction stages producers would transport bricks of tank, where special enzymes are dehydrated Zinfandel grapes to added. These break down the grape pumped through the pasteurizer, Chicago and New York. They came skins, extracting colour, aroma and killing yeast and spoilage organisms. with a strong warning label: flavour. The tank is held at near It then goes into the bag filler which freezing to prevent the must from purges the sterile bags with a double fermenting. After a few days it is CAUTION flush of nitrogen, and fills each bag to pumped off, pressed and settled a very strict tolerance. Do not add these grapes to five much the same way as the whites. gallons of water and five pounds of sugar with yeast, or it will ferment Some juice is boiled at low into wine, which is ILLEGAL. temperatures in vacuum concentrators to prevent browning and caramelisation. This removes The first wine kits began to appear in water, leaving concentrated grape the 1970s. They featured cans of juice. As some aromatic compounds grape concentrate and packs of acid, can be carried away in this vapour, a nutrient and yeast which could fractional distillation apparatus on ferment into a wine-like beverage, the concentrator recovers the although it was not a tasty drop. essences, returning them to the concentrate after processing. By the mid-1980s Doug and Ross Tocher, founders of Winexpert, knew The juices and concentrates are Filling & packaging they could do better. They mixed shipped to the Winexpert facility carefully processed The bags are automatically capped concentrates with fresh and loaded into the kit boxes that grape juice and are sealed, shrink-wrapped and adjusted it for perfect packed on a skid for a quality balance as a finished assurance microbiological hold, wine. They placed it where it is examined for signs of into sterile bags, bacterial or yeast activity. If it passes, preserving the flavours it is then shipped to the warehouse, and aromas in the juice and from there to dealers, and and the modern wine finally, to you, the winemaker. kit was born! Juice processing in Winexpert’s hightech winery The Canadian based Winexpert com- pany is the world’s largest manufac- How turer of premium wine kits. where they are pumped into Winexpert kits nitrogen purged tanks, tested for Their top quality “Selection” & “Vintners Reserve” wine kits are now are made quality and stability, and held at available from your local specialist very low temperatures. This speeds brewing supplier. Also look out for Winexpert purchases grapes from up the formation of wine diamonds their “Island Mist” kits which combine growers by specifying conditions at (crystals of potassium bitartrate from natural fruit flavours with premium harvest (acid, pH, brix, and colour) the tartaric acid naturally occurring varietal wines. and organoleptic qualities (flavour in the wine), and preserves them More at www.winexpert.com and aroma). These specifications are until they are to be used. Absinthe, which originated in the first famously severed his ear under its and violence. The Swiss, who outlawed century AD, is flavoured with influence. Absinthe in 1910, were among the Wormwood and has a distinctively most notorious bootleggers during its Absinthe was first produced prohibition with a thriving aniseed taste. commercially in 1797 by Henry-Louis underground industry before the ban Pernod, who purchased the formula Other aromatic ingredients include was lifted in March 2005. liquorice, hyssop, fennel, angelica root, from a French exile living in and star aniseed. Wormwood Switzerland. Absinthe was traditionally served is a plant native to Europe through two sugar cubes as and Asia with leaves that they rested on a purpose- designed spoon on top of a have a strong aromatic The Absinthe Story odour and bitter taste. glass. Today barmen pour a shot into a glass, soak a Thujone is the active spoon of sugar in the glass and light ingredient that is rumoured to have Absinthe was banned in much of the spoon so the sugars caramelize, Europe in the early 20th century when caused hallucinations, also known as before up to 3-4 parts of water is linked to hallucinations, depression the 'Green Fairy'. However, the added. hallucinating was more likely caused by the toxic chemicals such as copper Top shelf Absinthe contains sulphate that were a part of early Wormwood so should be consumed in Absinthe recipes. moderation. The recipe on the bottle also includes instructions on producing Early Absinthe consisted of dried the spirit at 50% by volume. leaves of wormwood steeped in wine, Commercial Absinthe comes in beer or distilled spirits. It inspired strengths from 50% to 85%. Be careful many prominent artists, writers and with any spirit over 50% in strength as poets including Vincent Van Gogh, the body can absorb it faster than it Oscar Wilde, Manet, and Ernest can metabolise the alcohol which can Hemingway. Hemingway supposedly cause serious alcohol poisoning and, in wrote the masterpiece 'For Whom the Van Gogh’s painting with the “green fairy” severe cases, death.

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