Right off the bat, let me be clear that the clay being used will not be commercial, lead glazed clay. If any glazing is used, it will be only salt glazed.
As some of you guys know, wine and alcohols used to be stored in terracotta containers called amphorae - of course, the Romans also used lead plumbing, so this doesn't prove safety by any stretch of the imagination. However, modern wine and beer brewers have begun a practice of using amphorae to age their alcohols. For example, here's a piece from winemag.com on the subject: http://www.winemag.com/2016/08/03/ancie ... rn-wines/
I'm still not 100% convinced of the safety, however, and I'd like to ask some of the more chemistry-minded people out there what toxins could leach into the alcohol. If you can point me towards potentially dangerous materials, I'll age some neutral spirit in the clay and send it to be tested for science.
Clay in distillation
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