Sweeteners

[MooseMan]

Hi guys

I'm yet to do a real run, prepping for the cleaning runs on my CCVM this weekend.

For my first couple of runs, I've been offered some wine by a friend, that was accidentally made with a fruit juice that had sweeteners in.
It's not drinkable as it's sickly sweet, but is approx 14% ABV. There's approx 15 gal, so worth having.

So, could I distill it to neutral and if so, will the sweeteners have an effect, either on the spirit, or even in the still?

[EricTheRed]

Run it and let us know how it works out.
No reason it shouldn't!

[Demy]

If you have wine the natural way would be the brandy, you could do a neutral if you want it but I would experience a brandy since you have the opportunity! Sweeteners will remain in the boiler ... you could also try to ferment sugars (if your palate says there is a lot of sugar)

[NZChris]

Depending on the fruit, I would attempt make a brandy first then make neutral from the scraps, including the heart cut if I couldn't manage to choose a nice brandy out of it.

[MooseMan]

Thanks for the answers chaps.
The wine was made from fruit juice, mainly red grape juice but he also used a blackcurrant cordial that contained 2 types of sweetener that obviously didn't ferment out.

I'm not sure that would make even a drinkable brandy, nevermind a good one!

The below from Demy gives me confidence to run it, at least!

"Sweeteners will remain in the boiler ... "

I'll report back once I've done so in any case, might be a while though.

[MooseMan]

Just a quick follow up on this in case it might help anyone else.

I stripped all of the wine that had sweeteners in, the low wines don't taste any different than my others, so I'm happy I can use for a neutral run.

The dunder left in the boiler smelled totally rank! Sweet but bitter and just unnatural. Made me gag when I tipped it out and hung around for ever.
I had to boil some water in the keg afterwards just to make sure it's all gone.