27Drinks

Almost every menu carries drinks, and a cook is often the person who makes them. Water, coffee and tea cost a guest little, yet a well-made cup can decide what that guest thinks of the whole meal. They also earn a kitchen a good share of its money.

Beer, cider, wine and spirits begin with the same living process. Yeast feeds on the natural sugar in fruit or grain and turns it into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Kitchens meet this as spoilage when fruit goes off, and brewers and winemakers use it on purpose.

27.1 Breakfast drinks

Coffee is often the first thing a guest drinks in a meal, or the last. Tea, hot or iced, tends to stay on the table from start to finish. Both reward a cook who learns to make and serve them properly.

Water

Bottled water, spring water, mineral water, still and sparkling water, and how to serve them, are set out with breakfast and brunch. see chapter 15: Drinks

American restaurants once set down a glass of iced water as soon as the menu came. Nobody now knows how the habit began. Some people thought water helped the guest wait, and some thought it helped digestion. In countries where the tap water is doubtful, a guest who asks for water is usually brought a bottle.

Kinds of water a guest may ask for.

Coffee: where it came from

Some anthropologists think the first people to use coffee were warriors in central Africa. They ate balls of crushed beans and animal fat before battle, for food and for the lift the caffeine gave.

A hot coffee drink may have been made in Persia in the ninth century A.D. It was boiled from ripe beans and was probably thick and harsh. By about the year 1000, wealthy Arabs drank it regularly, from beans grown in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and sold by Egyptian traders. The drink, called kahwa, spread to every class of Arab society, and coffeehouses opened across the Levant.

Europe took to coffee in the 17th century. In 1669 Suleiman Aga came to the court of Louis XIV of France as the Ottoman ambassador and served coffee at his lavish parties; the French nobility soon made it their drink. In Vienna, the Turks fled a battle in 1683 and left sacks of green coffee beans behind. Franz George Kolschitzky took them and opened the city's first coffeehouse, The Blue Bottle.

Coffee stayed very costly while the sultan controlled the trade. That ended when the Dutch took plants from Arabia and grew them in Java before 1700, and the French carried seedlings to the West Indies early in the 18th century. From there, plantations spread through the Americas.

Coffee: the bean

Coffee grows on a small tree in tropical and subtropical places. Its fruit is a bright red cherry. Inside the clear flesh sit two seeds with flat sides, and these are the beans. Pickers gather ripe cherries by hand. The fruit is then cleaned, fermented and hulled, which leaves green beans ready for roasting, blending, grinding and brewing. Any bean can be roasted light or dark, ground coarse or fine, and brewed by any method.

Two species matter. Arabica gives the finest coffees and is the most important in trade. Robusta makes a less flavorful drink, but the trees are hardier and bear more, so it is growing in importance. Robusta also carries more caffeine.

Soil, sun and air shape the flavor almost as much as roasting and brewing do. So beans are sold by place name, among many others:

• Colombian
• Chanchamayo (Peru)
• Kilimanjaro (Tanzania)
• Blue Mountain (Jamaica)
• Java and Sumatra (Indonesia)
• Kona (Hawaii)

Some gourmet coffees use one kind of bean, but most coffee sold across the United States mixes several beans.

Roasting brings out flavor, darkens the bean and draws its oils to the surface. Beans were once sold green and roasted at home; now experts with the right machines do it. No international body fixes the names, but roasts fall into light, medium, medium-dark and dark. The common names, from city roast to espresso roast, are in a table with breakfast and brunch. see chapter 15: Drinks

Coffee: grinding and keeping

Leave the roasting to experts, but grind the beans yourself, close to brewing.

• Whole beans keep fresh for a few weeks. Dry and sealed away from other smells, they can be frozen for several months, and you can grind them straight from the freezer.
• Ground coffee keeps three or four days, sealed airtight and kept from light and heat.
• Never refrigerate coffee.

Coffee: brewing

Good coffee comes from the right amount of coffee for the water and the right contact time. Both depend on the machine.

Drip coffee. A drip machine heats water in a reservoir and lets it fall slowly over the grounds and through a filter. The usual best measure is 2 level tablespoons of ground coffee for each 6 fl. oz. (¾ cup) of water. A "cup" of coffee is ¾ of a measuring cup. A pound of coffee gives about 80 level tablespoons, enough for about 40 cups. The Coffee Brewing Institute designed a scoop, the Approved Coffee Measure (ACM), that holds exactly the 2 tablespoons.

For commercial machines:

• They usually take premeasured packs, sized for a single pot or a large urn.
• For stronger coffee, add more coffee; a longer brew does not help.
• For weaker coffee, brew it at normal strength and then add hot water.
• Never brew the same grounds twice.

Espresso. A pump forces hot water at high pressure through coffee that is very finely ground and packed tight. The coffee comes in bulk or in premeasured pods for even quality. One serving takes about ¼ oz. (7 g) of coffee and 1½ fl. oz. (45 mL) of water. A longer pull with 2 to 3 fl. oz. (60 to 90 mL) of water, popular in the United States, is called espresso lungo. Work fast: if water runs through too long, the cup fills with thin coffee and loses its strength. Because so many drinks start from a single or double shot, this matters.

A good espresso is strong, rich and smooth, never bitter or sour. A golden-brown foam, the crema, sits on the black coffee. Warm the small cups first. In Europe the saucer often holds a lemon twist, with a small glass of water alongside.

Coffee: what spoils a cup

• Water. Poor water makes poor coffee. Many machines are plumbed into the building supply, so the cook may not control it.
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• Dirty equipment. Coffee oil leaves a film you cannot see inside machines and pots, and it makes every later batch taste stale or rancid. Rinse pots and carafes well with hot water after each use, and take machines apart to clean as the maker directs. Scale on the heating element also makes it work less well.
• Waiting. Serve coffee as soon as it is brewed. Air dulls the aroma, then the taste goes flat and finally bitter. Drip coffee can sit on the hot plate for a short time at 85°C to 88°C (185°F to 190°F), but pouring it straight into a thermal carafe is better. Never reheat cold coffee; the swing in temperature ruins it.

Coffee: tasting

Tasters judge four things. How to taste like a cook is covered with flavor. see chapter 6: Tasting like a cook: the senses

• Aroma: coffee usually tastes as it smells, and some, such as Colombian, smell stronger than others.
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• Acidity: a pleasant tartness that gives the cup snap and life; Kenyan and Guatemalan coffees have a lot of it.
• Body: how heavy the coffee feels in the mouth, heaviest in Sumatran and lightest in Mexican and Venezuelan.
• Flavor: the hardest to pin down, and the most important.

Coffee on the menu

Drip, or filter, coffee is the usual cup in the United States. It goes to the guest black and unsweetened, and the guest adds sugar or milk.

• Black: plain coffee, no sugar, no milk or cream.
• Café au lait (also café crème): strong coffee, not espresso, with hot milk that has not been steamed; by tradition served in a bowl with no handle.
• Demitasse: strong black coffee or espresso served in a small cup; the word also names the cup itself.
• Iced coffee: strong coffee over ice. Sweeten it before it meets the ice. It may take milk or cream; Australians may add vanilla ice cream, and in Vietnam it drips from a small filter pot onto condensed milk. Never make it from leftover coffee.
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• After-dinner coffee: strong coffee with spirits, liqueur or spice, often sweet and topped with whipped cream. Irish coffee uses Irish whisky; café brûlot uses orange, cloves and brandy.

Drinks built on espresso.

A barista, Italian for bartender, is now a person trained to make espresso drinks. Steamed milk is heated by the steam from the espresso machine to about 66°C to 77°C (150°F to 170°F). Foamed milk is heated and whipped with steam and air, and ends up a little cooler. Any milk works; more fat gives a creamier drink. To froth, hold a jug of milk under the steam wand. Turn on the steam only once the tip is below the surface, and keep the tip under while you move the jug, until the milk looks like frothy cream. Milk itself is covered with dairy. see chapter 14: Dairy and cheese

Coffee: flavors, caffeine and other uses

Ground chicory root has long been mixed into coffee, and the French in particular like its bitterness. Other cultures have used toasted barley, dried figs and spices. Flavored beans, such as vanilla, hazelnut or chocolate raspberry, are tumbled with flavoring oils after roasting.

Caffeine is an alkaloid found in coffee, tea leaves and cocoa beans. It can make people more alert and less tired, but too much gives some people a racing heart or keeps them awake. A cup of filtered coffee holds 85 to 100 mg. Decaffeinated coffee has at least 97% of its caffeine taken out.

Coffee also goes into food: stews, sauces and pan gravy; rye and pumpernickel breads; cakes, custards, ice cream, dessert sauces and icings. It pairs well with chocolate, nuts and rum.

Tea and tisanes

Tea and tisanes are made by infusion: dried leaves, herbs, spices, flowers or fruit steeped in freshly boiled water. More than half the people in the world choose tea as their drink. In the United States, 85% of the tea drunk is iced.

All true tea comes from the leaves of one plant, Camellia sinensis, a tree or bush of high, wet, tropical places. What happens to the leaves after picking makes the three kinds.

• Black tea is fermented, which gives it an amber-brown color and a strong taste.
• Green tea is not fermented. It is yellow-green, with a bitter edge. Among Chinese green teas, Gunpowder is ranked finest, then Imperial, then Hyson.
• Oolong is part fermented, so it sits between the two. It is popular in China and Japan, often scented with jasmine.

Black tea is graded by leaf size, because big leaves brew slower than small ones. Chinese and Indian black teas use the same grades:

• Souchong means large leaves.
• Pekoe means medium leaves.
• Orange pekoe means the smallest whole leaves; the word "orange" has nothing to do with the fruit.
• Broken leaves, graded broken orange pekoe or broken pekoe, brew darker and stronger and fill most tea bags.

Green and oolong leaves are graded by size and age.

Like coffee, tea takes its character from where it grows, and many teas carry a place name: Darjeeling, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Assam. Many teas on sale are blends. A flavored tea has oils, dried fruit, spices, flowers or herbs added. Allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper make teas for cold weather; mint and citrus brighten others, and bergamot oil is what flavors Earl Grey. A table of black, green and oolong teas is with breakfast and brunch. see chapter 15: Drinks

Tea is judged on three points. Astringency, or briskness, is a sharp, dry feel on the tongue that makes tea refreshing; it is not bitterness, which is a fault. Body is how thick the tea feels, from light to full. Aroma is its smell and flavor once brewed.

Tisanes, or herb teas, hold no real tea. They are made by steeping flowers, herbs, seeds or roots, fresh or dried; chamomile, ginseng, linden flower and lemon balm are favorites. Most countries have folk medicines given this way. In Europe a tisane may follow a meal to help digestion, or come at bedtime to help sleep. Herb teas usually have no caffeine. During the American Revolution they were called "Liberty teas." In a restaurant they arrive as ready-made blends.

27.2 Tea

Make the same tea several ways and compare them, to learn what shapes a good cup:

• the quality of the tea
• the kind and heat of the water
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• what the teapot is made of
• how the cook works

The method

• Start with a clean teapot and warm it by filling it with boiling water.
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• Measure fresh cold water and bring it just to the boil. The moment it boils, empty the warming water from the pot, put in the tea and pour the fresh boiling water over.
• Cover and steep for the time the tea needs. Then lift out the bag or tea ball, or strain off the leaves.
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• To judge it, serve it in the pot it was made in. If the pot is china, pour a little into a small clear glass so the color shows.

How much tea, and how long

Amounts and steeping times.

What good tea looks and tastes like

Good tea is bright and clear, with no oily film. Its color fits its kind: pale straw for green, deep amber for black, light golden brown for oolong. The aroma is gentle and the flavor delicate, with as much astringency as the kind should have. Green tea is more astringent than black.

Green tea is made from leaves that are not fermented, and it is said to hold the most polyphenols, which are antioxidants. Tea and coffee can be brewed several ways:

• percolated
• French press
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• drip
• vacuum
• pour over
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27.3 Coffee

Brew coffee by each basic method, with the grind each pot needs. What decides the result:

• the ground coffee
• the water temperature
• how the pot is made, and of what
• the cook's technique

The method

• Wash the pot in hot soapy water and rinse it well.
• Fill the coffeemaker to at least three-quarters of what it holds; each kind works best that way.
• Use 1 to 2 level tablespoons of coffee for each 6 oz. serving of fresh cold soft water, less for weak coffee and more for strong.
• Take out the grounds and keep the coffee hot until it is served.

Six ways to brew

• Steeped. Tie regular-grind coffee loosely in rinsed cheesecloth so water can move through it. Bring the water just to the boil, turn the heat down a little, add the bag, cover and keep at a simmer for 7 to 10 minutes.
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• Percolated. Put the water in the pot and regular-grind coffee in the basket, then fit the basket, stem and spreader. Heat fast until it starts to perk, then turn down and perk gently for 8 to 9 minutes. An electric percolator stops by itself.
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• Drip. Put drip-grind coffee in the basket. Warm the bottom part with very hot water before you put the pot together. Pour freshly boiled water into the top, and keep the pot warm while it drips through.
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• French press. Pour freshly boiled water over finely ground coffee in the carafe and leave it a few minutes. Push the plunger down so the filter traps the grounds below. Throw the grounds away once the coffee is poured.
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• Vacuum. Put cold water in the lower bowl, a glass rod in the stem of the upper bowl, and fine coffee in the upper bowl. Heat fast until nearly all the water has risen to the top; some stays below the stem. Lower the heat, and turn it off after a minute. After 2 to 3 more minutes, the pot cools, a vacuum forms and the coffee drains back down.
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• Ready-made. Brew dark roast and decaffeinated coffee by whichever method suits their grind. Make freeze-dried coffee, instant coffee and cereal drinks as the package says.

Specialty coffees

Each of these starts from coffee brewed at double strength.

• Orange coffee. Pare the zest, only the colored part of the peel, from half an orange. Steep it in 6 oz. of boiling water for 3 minutes. Stir in 1 tbsp. sugar and 6 oz. coffee. Whip ¼ cup chilled heavy cream to soft peaks with a chilled bowl and beaters, fold in 1 tsp. sugar, and spoon it on top of a small cup.
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• Spiced Viennese coffee. Boil 4 oz. water with 1 tbsp. sugar, 4 cloves and a 1-inch cinnamon stick. Off the heat, leave it 5 minutes, lift out the spices and add 9 oz. coffee. Serve in a demitasse cup under sweetened whipped cream and a dusting of ground cinnamon.
• Brazilian coffee. Boil ½ oz. chopped unsweetened chocolate with 2 tbsp. sugar, 4 oz. water and a 1-inch cinnamon stick for 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the cinnamon, add ¼ cup milk and ¼ cup half-and-half, and heat to serving temperature. Stir in 6 oz. coffee and ¼ tsp. vanilla.

Coffee creamers are among the potentially hazardous foods, the ones that need temperature control. see chapter 2: Potentially hazardous foods

What good coffee looks and tastes like

Good coffee is clear, with no grounds in the cup and no oily film on top. It runs from deep amber to rich brown, by the strength of the brew and the darkness of the roast. It tastes fresh and mellow, only a little astringent and a little bitter.

27.4 Beer and cider

What beer is made from

People have brewed beer for 6,000 to 8,000 years. It needs four things: malted barley, water, hops and yeast. Beer can be made from other grains, but many people define it as fermented barley. Germany's beer purity law of 1516, the Reinheitsgebot, allowed only those four ingredients.

A barley grain is the fruit of the barley grass. Most of it is the endosperm, a store of starch meant to feed the young plant, wrapped with the embryo inside a protective husk. Yeast cannot use that starch as it is.

Malting

Malting unlocks the sugar.

• Steeping. The grain is soaked, which wakes it, and it sprouts for 4 to 5 days. As the young plant grows, its enzymes start to break down the starch and the cell walls around it.
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• Kilning. Heat stops the sprouting and the enzyme work. The enzymes must survive, though, because they are needed later in the mash.
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How the malt is kilned sets much of a beer's color and taste. Higher heat brings Maillard browning and more complex flavor.

Kilned malts.

Most breweries buy their malt ready-made. A malt is called diastatic when it still has enough enzyme, such as amylase, to turn its own starch into sugar in the mash. Darker roasts give more chocolate, coffee, caramel and toasted flavors.

Brewing

• Milling. The malt is cracked into a coarse flour called grist. Brewers once kept it coarse, because the husks served as the filter. With plastic (polypropylene) filters, modern brewers can mill it smaller.
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• Mashing. The grist is steeped in hot water. This wets the grain, wakes the enzymes and turns the starch into sugar. The sweet liquid is the wort. Each enzyme works best in its own temperature range, from about 95°F up to 162°F.
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• Separating. The wort is drained off the husks and grain bits.
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• Boiling. Hops go in and the wort boils. The boil makes the hops bitter, drives off unwanted smells, kills bacteria and wild yeast, stops the grain enzymes, concentrates the wort, and makes proteins clump so they can be skimmed off with the hop debris. That sludge is the trub. Syrups or sugar from cane, beet or corn, called wort extenders, are usually added here.
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• Clarifying. Clumped proteins, tannins and hop remains are filtered out, each brewery in its own way.
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Hops

Hops are a climbing vine. Brewers use the flower cones, usually milled and pressed into pellets, or an extract. The alpha acids in hops change in the boil into iso-alpha acids, which give most beers their bitterness and also hold back some bacteria. Hops also bring tannins, the same drying compounds found in unripe fruit, red wine and tea.

India Pale Ale began with a problem of shipping. In the 1700s Britain kept a large army in India, and much of the ale shipped out spoiled on the way. Ales brewed with more hops kept better, and that was the start of IPA.

Hops added after the boil are dry hops, or aroma hops. Their oils, made of 400 to 1,000 different compounds, are strong in smell and flavor and would be lost in boiling. Light can turn the bitter acids into a smelly compound; such beer is called lightstruck or skunky. By hop type, amount and timing, a beer can smell of citrus, tropical fruit, flowers, herbs, spice, wood, pine or resin, among others, and hops also help the foam last.

Fermenting: ale and lager

The yeast decides the family a beer belongs to.

Ale and lager yeasts.

Both yeasts are now classed as strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. German wheat beers use their own weizen yeast, counted as an ale yeast. Beers left to wild yeast and bacteria are spontaneously fermented; Belgium's lambic beers, from West Flanders, are made this way with Brettanomyces, which can taste of barnyard or tropical fruit.

Fermentation makes flavor as well as alcohol.

• Fusel alcohols give a warming feel, but too much tastes harsh; fusel comes from the German for bad liquor. Too much yeast, or fermenting above 80°F, makes more of them.
• Esters bring fruit and flower notes: banana, apple, grape, papaya, honey or rose; some smell of solvent. Brewers want a balance, not a flood.
• Diacetyl tastes of butter. A little suits many ales; more is unpleasant, especially in lager, and can turn rancid. The yeast makes it early and clears most of it by the end. Some beers get a diacetyl rest: two or three days slightly warmer once fermenting is done.

Beer styles

There is no single agreed way to sort beers. Brewers describe them by yeast, malt, hops, strength and fizz. Alcohol runs from 2% to over 14%. Bubbles add smell, mouthfeel and taste and shape the foam. They may come from the yeast or be forced in under pressure. Nitrogen gives smaller bubbles and a softer feel than carbon dioxide.

Cider: the apples

Cider is made from apples. In the United States the word can mean plain apple juice or the fermented drink; here it means the alcoholic one. Apples themselves, and the difference between eating and cooking apples, are covered with fruit. see chapter 18: Pomes

The cider is only as good as its apples. They must be ripe, juicy and sweet, and a full-bodied cider mixes several kinds, sweet and tart, for balance. The apples are not peeled, because much of the taste is in the skin. They are ground, then pressed; most of the fiber stays behind. Pressed juice may be pasteurized and bottled as apple juice, or fermented.

The main sugars in the juice are fructose, glucose and sucrose. Glucose syrup and water cost less than juice, so many commercial ciders are now about 35% juice and 65% glucose syrup.

Cider: before and during fermenting

Pectin. Apples hold a lot of pectin. Left in, it can set into jelly when the juice is concentrated, or leave the cider hazy. Makers may add pectin-splitting enzymes before fermenting, after it, or both. French cider makers often clear the juice first with gelatin, a step called defecation, then ferment it slowly; these ciders are fruitier.

Sulfur. Many makers add sulfur dioxide or potassium metabisulphite. It stops most spoilage yeasts and bacteria but lets the wanted fermenting yeast work.

Yeast. Cider was once fermented by the yeasts and bacteria already on the apples. A wild ferment passes through three stages, each led by different yeasts: a fruit-yeast stage, a fermenting stage when strong Saccharomyces yeasts take over and make the alcohol, and a maturing stage. Large factories often sulfur heavily and add pure wine yeast instead; craft makers often keep the wild way.

Fermenting takes 5 to 10 days, or 4 to 6 weeks when cool. By then the yeast has eaten nearly all the sugar and gone quiet. The riper and sweeter the fruit, the more alcohol the cider ends with.

Esters give cider fruity, flowery notes, and ethyl acetate can be up to 90% of them. Compounds called dioxanes give the green, cidery taste, and they form only when apples or pears ferment.

Cider: after fermenting

• Racking moves the cider off its lees, the sediment, usually by filtering or spinning.
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• Aging was done in wooden barrels, which is not needed if the cider has been chilled and cleared well.
• Malolactic fermentation is a second ferment by lactic acid bacteria, often living in the barrel wood. They turn sharp malic acid, the taste of green apples, into softer, richer lactic acid. The cider ends rounder and less raw. High alcohol or a pH below about 3 to 4 holds it back.
• Dry or sweet. Cider is naturally dry: little sugar is left, and the taste comes from the alcohol, esters and the rest. Some drinkers want a sweet still cider.
• Sparkling. Carbon dioxide can be forced in under pressure before bottling or kegging. Or yeast is added at bottling so the cider makes its own bubbles; then a little yeast settles in every bottle and clouds the last pour. Bottles must be made to hold the pressure.
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• Stabilizing. At the end the cider is pasteurized, or else treated with ascorbic acid or sulfur dioxide. This also guards against Acetobacter, the bacteria that turn alcohol into vinegar.
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27.5 Wine and spirits

Grapes

Wine is the fermented juice of a fruit. Many fruits and plants have been used, but the classic wine is made from grapes. The pulp holds the sugar that ferments; the skin and seeds hold much of the flavor.

Wine grapes are Vitis vinifera; table grapes are Vitis labrusca. There are more than 5,000 varieties, each with its own taste and smell. European wines are mostly named for where they come from. American, Australian, South African and New Zealand wines are mostly named for the grape. Grapes as fruit are covered with fruit. see chapter 18: Grapes

Soil, temperature, rain and the way the vines are grown all change a grape's flavor. Winemakers call the land and climate together the terroir.

By harvest, sugar makes up 15% to 25% of a grape. Tartaric and malic acids make up more than 90% of the acid in the juice, and tartaric acid gives most of the tartness. In tasting, acidity means the fresh, sour side of a wine, judged by how well it balances the sweetness and the bitter parts. Two groups of compounds in the skin and seeds shape red wine: anthocyanins give the red color, and tannins give the drying, puckering feel.

Making wine

• Harvest and crush. Grapes are picked in late summer and early autumn, mostly by machine at large wineries. Stems come off first to avoid off-flavors, and the grapes are crushed right away to free the sugar, acid and some skin compounds. Crushing too hard pulls out too many tannins and makes the wine too astringent.
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• White or red. For white wine the juice is taken off the skins so it gains no color or tannin. For red wine, juice and skins ferment together.
• Maceration. Juice is left in contact with skins to soak out color and flavor, cold, warm or with enzymes, before, during or after fermenting. Too long a soak can lower these compounds again, as they join up and drop out.
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• Adjusting. Sugar sets both the strength and the sweetness, and is measured in degrees Brix. Sugar or grape juice may be added. A wine with too little acid tastes flat; too much, unpleasantly sour. Winemakers may add acid, most often tartaric.
• Fermenting. Wild ferments start with other yeasts until the alcohol reaches 3% to 4%; then those die and Saccharomyces takes over. Other winemakers add a chosen strain of S. cerevisiae from the start.
• Malolactic fermentation, as in cider, softens harsh malic acid. It is used on more reds than whites, though oaked Chardonnay often goes through it.
• Aging. Wine matures, often for months or years in barrels, before bottling. Oak gives it tannins and flavors such as vanilla (vanillin), clove (eugenol) and whisky lactone.
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• Clearing. Fining takes out unwanted parts: bentonite clay removes the proteins that cloud white wine, and gelatin, casein or albumin bind extra tannin. Filtering can remove spoilage organisms.
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Air turns the wine's color compounds brown and muddy, which is worst in white wine. Winemakers add sulfur dioxide against browning, against alcohol turning to vinegar, and against spoilage organisms.

Wine is seldom filtered the way beer and cider are. As it ages, tannins join into larger pieces and fall as sediment, so an older bottle may have a deposit. To decant is to pour the wine off gently and leave the sediment behind.

Balance, sweetness and faults

A good wine balances alcohol, acid, sweetness, fruit and tannin so that none drowns the rest. A dry wine has little sugar left and does not taste sweet. Many people notice that sweeter wines keep longer once open: a lot of sugar pulls water out of microbes and kills them. Oak can add sweetness too; in 2017, scientists in Bordeaux found intensely sweet compounds that the wood releases during aging.

Too many esters or fusel alcohols count as a fault in wine. Other faults come from unwanted microbes.

Wine faults.

What a spirit is

A distilled spirit is a drink whose alcohol has been raised above that of the brew it came from, by distilling. Any sugary fruit or syrup can be fermented and then distilled; grain and potatoes work too, for whiskey and vodka. Fruit is mashed as for wine or cider; grain is malted, milled and mashed as for beer.

Distilling

Ethanol boils at 78.4°C (173.12°F), below water at 100°C (212°F). Heat the brew, and the steam carries more alcohol than the liquid had. Cooled back to liquid, a first distillate is about 25% to 35% alcohol.

The pot still. The pot is filled 50% to 75% with mash, wine or beer and closed. Thick mashes are thinned with 20% water. Most stills are copper, because copper binds sulfur compounds and gives a cleaner spirit. Distillers split the run into three parts: the head (fore-run), the heart (middle run) and the tail (after-run). Methanol boils lower than ethanol, at about 65°C, and small aldehydes and esters lower still; fusel alcohols boil at 115°C to 140°C.

A fire straight under the pot can scorch a thick mash and is an explosion risk. Some whisky makers keep the wood fire for its flavor and stir the mash all the time with a rummager. Others heat with steam, a hot water jacket or electricity.

The column still. Mash enters near the top and runs down toward the heat. Its vapor rises through a stack of plates and leaves some of the heavier compounds at each one. A pot still works one batch at a time; a column still can run without stopping.

Aging and finishing

In the barrel, tannins, wood compounds and minerals dissolve into the spirit, and further reactions follow. Many barrels are charred inside, and some held wine first and pass on its flavor.

• Apple and cherry spirits and brandies do best with a short time in oak or steel.
• Kirsch (cherry) and plum spirits rest in closed glass or tanks somewhere warm.
• Single malt Scotch and Irish whiskeys must age at least 3 years, bourbon only in new barrels, and other whiskies usually in barrels that held sherry or other wine.
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• Tequila, rum, vodka, moonshine and gin can be sold unaged.
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• The farther north a spirit is made, the longer it tends to age.

Most distillates come off the still above 40% to 45% alcohol and are cut with water to make them drinkable. Some flavor compounds cloud the spirit, so distillers chill it to between 0°C and −10°C and filter out what drops. Bottling is simple. Rum, whisky, fruit spirits and wine brandy may not have flavorings or sweeteners added after distilling; whiskey may take plain caramel coloring, fruit spirits may not.

Kinds of spirits

Most spirits come from one of four things:

• grain, for whiskey and vodka
• grapes, for cognac and brandy
• molasses, for rum
• agave, for tequila
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• Whiskey is distilled from cereal grains and aged in barrels. Corn, barley, rye or wheat malt is mashed much as for beer, and the wort goes straight to the still. Each region makes it its own way.
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• Brandy is distilled wine.
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• Rum is distilled from sugar cane.
• Tequila is distilled from agave.
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• Eau de vie: a clear brandy made from fruit, fermented, then distilled twice, and never sweetened. Framboise is the raspberry one. Similar drinks include pálinka from Hungary, raki from Turkey, coconut arrack from Sri Lanka, and Kirschwasser and Schnapps from Germany.
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Liqueurs are neutral spirit, usually something like vodka, flavored with fruit, herbs or nuts and often heavily sweetened. They are drunk straight, often with dessert, or go into coffee, cocktails and cooking.

Common liqueurs.