flavor - opinions wanted

[Rocky_Creek]

In wine making I found and also read that mixing (blending) different fruits, grapes, berries can lead to a fuller richer taste, before or after fermentation.

My experiments in mixed distillations are limited as of yet, but I am thinking that a spirit made from several sources of fermentables might also have a richer fuller taste. It would not necessarily taste like some now known spirit.

What do you think? I'm not talking about just a mix of grains, but grains mixed with fruit, molasses, and what ever you can think of.

[KatoFong]

If you got the mix right, almost certainly.

I'm currently fermenting a wash that is essentially a pure sugar wash, but adds OJ, some grape juice concentrate, a little honey...the hope is to make a very simple wine to turn into neutral spirit.

[The Chemist]

Making a neutral spirits has more to do with the distillation parameters than what you start with. Seems to me you're just making "more expensive" neutral spirist, Kato.

On the other hand, I agree that a mixed distillation could be very, very interesting!

[KatoFong]

I could be. Although I've been told from those experienced that you get a better flavor out of neutral spirit made from, say, wine than from a pure sugar wash.

The recipe I'm using is one from the homedistiller.org site, and the fella writing it makes some really good points about why his recipe is worth the extra cash. For example nutrient content in the grape juice, the layer of fine vegetable matter that the OJ provides. We'll see what I get.

The honey I just added because I had some honey lying around. Not enough to use to flavor a liqueur, and not of the right kind to taste good in tea.

[The Chemist]

OK, I see, that makes sense. Let us know how it turns out!

[possum]

another thing for consideration is the yeast and temp of fermation. I used a high grav sucrose wash and red star champagne yeast(75degrees F), and the bananna odor(and flavor) was shocking(i put no banannas in my wash). some of the flavor and odor come through the distillation, but carefull cutting and re-distillation helped remove the non-neutral character.

possum