Craft distillates “Antidrinker”:
no toxic impurities — no hangover
Craft distillates “Antidrinker”:
Description
“Antidrinker Original”
— a classiс 43-degree beer distillate
Our craft beer schnapps adores meeting new people in bars. It makes brilliant first impression in no time. Firstly, it gives them an impactive taste of live beer — bright, expressive, but not bitter. And then it envelopes them in a lingering soft aftertaste.
Having introduced himself, the beer schnapps starts a conversation. It might tell you how he was a home-made ale brewed in the old way, in open tubs. How it went through fire, water and double distillation in copper stills. How it was cleansed from filthness and toxic impurities, but kept its clear beer taste. And the most important thing is that it can be silent at the right time and listen to any stories. Basically, it is a perfect companion for an evening.
“Antidrinker Buckwheat”
— a buckwheat 40-degree beer distillate
Buckwheat often makes appearances in restaurants around the globe in various disguises. In Russia it is known as a porridge, in Europe it portrays itself as pancakes, gratins and pasta, in Asia — as buns and noodles. It is also known as honey and milk, and even jam and chocolate.
We decided to invite buckwheat to try on the role of beer distillate in a duo with barley malt. It agreed — which resulted in the world’s only buckwheat beer schnapps with distinctive taste. Now, in its new original emploi, buckwheat makes spectacular appearances in bars. If you meet it there, invite it to your table, introduce it to your company, pay compliments.
“Antidrinker Borodino Bread”
— a 40-degree infusion of a beer distillate on Borodino
Bread
“Borodino Bread” appeared such a long time ago that its past is enshrouded in legends. According to one of them, sisters of a Spaso-Borodinsky Monastery started to bake rye bread in memory of fallen warriors, and the sprinkling of cilantry and carraway symbolilzed grape-shot.
But times change, and so does Borodino Bread. Now it is fresh from the oven — hot, soft and kind. Then it hardens, becoming tough and strong-willed. Then it is being soaked in beer distillate for 4 weeks, giving out its whole experience and its very essence — distinctive taste and flavor. And then the world’s first Borodino beer schnapps infusion goes to a bar. Who’d think the hero is 200 years old!
“Antidrinker Berrymore”
— a 36-degree infusion of a beer distillate on wild berries
Sir Berrymore should have been banned from bars, for it is too handsome and shrewd. It may infatuate most ladies and many gentlemen. One thing is good: there will be no morning consequences and regrets.
Such charisma had been honed for as many as 10 years: this is how long we’ve been experimenting, selecting and grinding proportions of cranberry, redberry and raspberry. As a result our beer schnapps berry infusion entices you by its deep ruby color, stuns you by its impactful taste without roughness and harshness and teases you by its juicy flavor — and is drunk surprisinly easily and softly. Be careful with this aristocrat!
Why Anti?
Indicator of high quality of an alcoholic drink is not so much evening pleasure as lack of morning suffering. That is what negative prefix in the title “Antidrinker” means: we lterally eliminate causes of hangover by removing them from our beverages. Let us figure out why it emerges and why responsible manufacturers weed out “heads” and “tails” from their products.
Why is hangover a hallmark of low quality alcohol?
In a nutshell: one of the causes of hangover is acetic aldehyde. This toxic substance is produced in out bodies when digesting alcohol, but is timely split and excreted. But if aldehydes have been poorly removed from a beverage, liver is unable to cope with them, and poisoning occurs.
When we drink alcoholic beverages, ethyl alcohol (ethanol) enters our bodies. To utilize it, enzyme production starts: mainly, in our liver, but also in GIT, pancreatic gland, lungs and skeletal muscles. An enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase oxidizes ethanol to acetic aldehyde (aka acetaldehyde, ethanal). This substance is dozens of times more toxic than ethanol and may poison our body, i.e. to cause hangover. Further, another enzyme — aldehyde dehydrogenase — transforms acetaldehyde into acetic acid which then degrades into carbon dioxide and water.
If a person with normal alcohol tolerance partakes reasonable amount of a high quality beverage, most likely, his or her body will quickly process acetaldehyde, and hangover will not occur or will be benign. But what will happen if alcohol is poorly cleared of harmful impurities and intrinsically comprises aldehydes and other toxic substances? These will go directly to liver, getting no chance to be split, will accumulate and poison the body. This is what the phrase “liver punch” means. And heavy hangover is a result.
Why alcohol may comprise toxic acetaldehyde?
In a nutshell: aldehydes belong to substances naturally comprised in original crude alcohol. When processed, it is cleared of such impurities, but sometimes poorly.
Crude alcohol, i.e. undistilled homebrew resulting from first wort distillation, comprises many harmful substances — so called head and tail fractions. To elliminate these, secondary distillation is used. In a spirit still crude alcohol is cleared of “heads” and “tails”: aldehydes, methyl alcohol, acetone, fusel oils, isoamyl alcohol (which causes morning memory lapses), etc. If purification is not scrupulous enough, toxic impurities leading to poisoning remain in the alcoholic beverage. This happens even to beverages from which we expect maximum purity — for instance, to vodka.
What is produced from crude alcohol by secondary distillation?
In a nutshell: rectificate and distillate may be produced from crude alcohol. Rectificate is pure ethyl alcohol. And distillate retains flavor of the stock (fruits, berries, grain).
Rectification and distillation processes are mainly very similar to each other, but their results even smell differently. Rectificated alcohol is high-proof ultra pure ethyl alcohol, pure C2H5OH. Distillate is also high-proof ethyl alcohol, but having organoleptic properties of the stock that was used to produce it. What distillate smells of grain, calvados smells of apples, plum brandy smells of plums, etc.
Process
How do we make “Antidrinker” to prevent it from causing hangover?
In a nutshell: “Antidrinker” is our copyrite distillate based on beer. We pay the closest attention at secondary distillation — removal of toxic head and tail fractions leading to hangover from our alcohol.
1. Selection of stock:
we use high quality “live” beer produced from barley malt.
2. Primary distillation:
crude alcohol has to be produced from the beer upon two conditions. Firstly, stills/cauldrons are copper. Copper is good at holding up and neutralizing sulfurous compounds produced in the wort during yeast fermentation. Secondly, distillation is quick. It is important to brew wort as little as possible, since “overdone” yeast will spoil the taste of final product.
3. Secondary (reduced) distillation:
a key stage of producing high quality alcohol beverage. Our goal is to remove all head and tail fractions, i.e., harmful impurities. Only middle fraction, aka drinkable fraction — so called body of the product — has to remain. We dilute crude alcohol to 30 degree strength, pour it into a still, turn on heat and... there are many nuances here as well.
3.1. Picking the “heads”:
first we need to remove head fractions from alcohol, painstakingly and slowly. No questions about painstakingly, but why slowly? Because quick distillation may be compared to a mountain torrent carrying, besides water, sand, stones and rubbish — i.e., a mixture of “body”, “heads” and “tails”, — and it is impossible to sort these out in the rapid flow. This is why we have to act as a gold miner, who gradually separates large stones from gold ore, than small stones, and finally sand.
Velocity of distillation depends on heating power: the higher — the quicker. Starting from 75 °C “heads” will start to evaporate and thanks to cooling device to poor out into receiving container. If we do not decrease the heating power by 20—30%, we will get mountain river effect: middle and tail fractions will pour out with head ones. That is why we separate head fractions deliberately and thoughtfully.
How much head fractions do we need to pick? It can be calculated by special formula: you take the amount of so called absolute alcohol in the still and take away 5—10% — and this will be your heads. The other method is empirical: an expert constantly takes samples, rubs them in his or her palms and by smell identifies the moment when it is time to stop removing head fractions. We prefer to combine Maths and professionalism to maximize the share of removed “heads”.
3.2. Picking the “body”:
now we carefully increase the power of heat and sit tight. Medium (drinking) fraction may take very long to separate, since it is the main part of the contents of the still.
3.3. Picking the “tails”:
in the end of distillation it is time to get rid of tail fractions — mixture of higher alcohols that are bad for our bodies. It does not take an expert to spot these in an alcoholic beverage by their peculiar harsh fusel smell. But since we are making distillate, we need to retain some “tails” — a very small painstakingly measured amount, just to retain beer flavor. This is the precision of dosage that differs noble drinks from home brew. And here we have no right to make mistakes, since we do not use flavorings, chemical colorings and other manipulations to mask excess amount of tail fractions. Our products fall under “White Dog” cathegory — they are pure and honest clear distillates.
4. Result:
we are sure we’ve made a high quality product. We were assisted both by modern technologies, and right equipment, and experience — but still the most important thing is scrupulousness, responsibility for the product. On our side, we’ve made every possible effort to minimize the risk of hangover — and we believe that adepts of high quality alcohol will enjoy “Antidrinker” in a civilized and reasonable manner, taking into account their constitutional peculiarities and caring for their own well-being and comfort of the others.
