I have a friend that runs a "cidery" - makes apple cider from locally sourced juice. He recently had a batch that sat too long, and had an off taste (had an infection, I think). So, he gave me 27 gallons of cider (about 6% ABV). I filtered it to get the stuff floating on top out, and then did pot still striping runs on 25 gallons, coming up with about 4.5 gallons of 30% low wines. That seemed to clean up the off flavors - I even kept a small jar of hearts from one of the stripping runs and it tastes good. I then combined those 4.5 gallons of low wines and the remaining 2 gallons of cider and did a slow spirit run, hoping to get more apple flavor by including the cider. The distillate came off starting at around 75% ABV and dropped down to about 50% or so before I could detect tails. I then collected down to 20%. I haven't made final cuts yet but plan to do that tonight after it airs out.
I tried a sample of hearts and it has a great taste so far. By far the easiest liquor I ever made - even easier than sugar runs! Love it when someone else does the fermenting!
Couple of questions:
Funny thing - the very first jar of about 200 ml has a great apple smell, not acetone harsh at all like I see with sugar runs. But, I will discard as foreshots like any other run. Anyone have any idea why it would smell so good? (Nevermind - a more detailed search revels this is most likely the "apple bomb" than many people notice early in the run.)
My main question - my cidery friend wants me to dilute a jar of the hearts with cider (instead of using distilled water like I normally do) to get it down to 40% ABV to then drink. While I will do it with a small jar and see how it tastes, my question is - if we do that, what drink will we create? Is it schnapps? Or is it something unique, with no commercial equivalent?
Diluting apple brandy distillate
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