Cognac from moonshine on oak chips and oak bark. How to insist moonshine on oak bark? Cognac from moonshine at home: a recipe

A barrel as a container is one of the oldest inventions of mankind. And, undoubtedly, the most important discovery in the history of cognac. Without the barrel, the great cognac would have remained one of the hundreds of eau-de-vies in France, whose names could only mean something to the locals and connoisseurs of "rural" distillates...

oak poetry
Unlike wine, cognac does not “live” outside the barrel. Being poured into glass containers, the noble drink seems to freeze, forever fixing the unique combination of qualities given to it by the year and the region of the harvest, as well as by many years of aging. And, of course, the art of Maitre de Shay, who creates this combination. The work of the cognac master is close to the composer's creativity - combining the "bass" of oak and the "high notes" of spirits, he can create the most complex symphony of aroma and taste.

Leaving aside romantic analogies, oak wood, first of all, is designed to convey light alcohol, in which floral and fruity aromas are laid down by nature, shades of aging - vanilla, chocolate, leather, etc. In addition, the barrel gives cognac the opportunity to mature and develop, slowly oxidizing in the process of interaction with oxygen penetrating into the pores of oak wood.
Accordingly, when choosing the right wood for a barrel, porosity and the chemical composition of wood are of great importance: it must contain the optimal amounts of lignins responsible for aromatics, as well as tannins and tannins involved in creating the "body" and color of cognac.
Winemakers and large barrel producers are now actively experimenting with different varieties of oak. For aging wines, for example, American oak is widely used. In Russia, Caucasian oak, or Apsheron oak, has become widespread. By the way, famous French cooperage firms, such as Seguin Moreau, located in the heart of the Cognac region, also buy it in small quantities.
And yet, in the centuries that have passed since the discovery of aging of wine spirits, nothing better for this purpose than French oak, which grows in the ancient forests of Tronce and Limousin, has not been found. The wood from Tronce gives wood with a large number of fine pores and more "smoothed" lignins and tannins. It is more often used for primary aging of alcohols. Oaks from Limousin have a coarser-grained wood, more saturated with chemical compounds important for cognac. This oak requires a particularly respectful attitude in the manufacture of barrels. It, for example, should never be sawn - only split on an archaic, guillotine-like machine, and only at a certain angle. Otherwise, the barrel will leak due to the high porosity of the wood. In addition, new Limousin wood barrels are used with great care so as not to oversaturate the spirits with bright, at first, tannins.
The French carefully guard these two legendary forests. Indeed, only old oaks, at least 40 years old, are suitable for the production of barrels. In practice, the wood of hundred-year-old, and even two-hundred-year-old "forest patriarchs" is considered to be of the highest quality. Every year, a large cognac house cuts down about 3,000 such huge trees for its needs, but for each cut down, it plants three new ones.
Far from the entire trunk goes to cooperage production. On average, 3-4 barrels are obtained from one large tree. However, in France, the attitude towards oaks is very reverent, and not a single piece of wood is wasted. What is not suitable for barrels goes to the production of furniture, building materials or fuel for firing future receptacles of cognac.

"Birth Pains"
So, the middle part of the trunk is split into boards - future oak staves, from which the walls of the barrels will subsequently be made. Then they are stacked in huge stacks right under the open sky. In this form, they will have to spend many months in the rain and wind. Moreover, the "unfortunate" boards are also periodically irrigated with water. All this is done in order to change the chemistry of the oak, to smooth and oxidize aggressive tannins and to open up lignins and other aromatic substances that are destined to appear in cognac in the future.
At large cooperage production sites for aging oak planks in the open occupy several hectares. They are equipped with their own weather station to control the movement of air currents and humidity in different parts of the field. It looks really impressive!
At the end of the aging cycle, the boards are dried in closed hangars, then they are planed, eliminating the scary dark coating that appears under the influence of weather conditions. Then staves, trapezoidal in cross section, are made from the boards, which are selected into “kits” for the future barrel. Today, all this is done using automation. And about a hundred years ago, the difficult task of determining by eye whether the staves would form into an even, without the slightest cracks, barrel, was helped only by the professional instinct of the cooper. And, I must say, it turned out not worse.
The selected rivets are folded and pulled together with hoops on one side, getting the so-called "rose". This "flower" will have an extremely important operation - roasting, which will help it find its unique aroma. The blank of the barrel is put on a metal cylinder, inside of which pieces of the same oak wood from which the barrel is assembled are burning hot - various trimmings and "production waste". The process is very organic and somewhat reminiscent of distillation. The same intense attention to the process, the same search for the “golden mean”, when natural vanillin and other aromatic compounds useful for cognac are released from wood lignins under the influence of a flame.
Separately prepare bottoms for barrels. Moreover, not a single gram of glue or a single carnation is used in the production. Any foreign element will certainly transfer shades into sensitive wine alcohol. The tightness of the barrel is achieved by carefully fitting the staves and other "old-fashioned" methods. They say that even large coopers still use such “sealants” as bread dough or dry leaves of reeds growing on the banks of the Charente River. During the firing process, the wood becomes not only fragrant, but also more flexible. Thanks to this, it is easier to pull it off with a second pair of hoops.
An almost finished barrel with hammered bottoms is polished on special machines, and then checked for leaks. To do this, it is filled with boiling water and “tormented” for a long time on a test bench. If after such a shake-up even a drop of liquid remains on the floor, the barrel is rejected.
Finished "barriques" at the Seguin Moro cooperage are branded with the symbol of the customer company, carefully packed in film and thick cardboard and shipped to customers around the world. The main part of cognac barrels remains at home. Cooperage was originally founded as a branch of one of the largest cognac houses and has retained its specialization. Only on special orders of cognac houses "Séguin Moreau" makes super-barrels - huge containers for blending spirits with a height of three human heights. The process of making them is a bit like building a house.
The KiN Group also orders barrels from this world-famous manufacturer. Now, for example, in new barrels from Seguin Moreau, alcohols of the 2008 vintage from Domaine de Broix are already aged. Gaining "wisdom", the shades donated by the land of the great Grande Champagne are gradually enriched with noble tones of aging.

Cognac barrel. Biography facts
- 1549 - the first mention in the sources: in the port books of La Rochelle, the fact of sending several dozen oak barrels of cognac to England was recorded.
- Some volume from the well-known "share of angels", it turns out, "drinks" the barrel itself. The wood of a new barrel, according to the latest data, can absorb up to 1% alcohol. Old, less "greedy", absorbs about 0.4% of alcohols.
- A cognac barrel has many names. In Cognac, it has long been called fûts, although many winemakers use the generic term barrique. In some cognac houses, huge barrels for blending or slow aging of alcohol are called “foudres” (foudres). And old barrels have long been called "red" (roux).
- There are no two absolutely identical barrels. This old thesis is true in everything. Even the capacity of barrels made by one master fluctuates quite significantly - from 350 to 400 liters. What to do, handmade.
- Surprisingly, the image of the barrel as a heraldic symbol did not take root in the Cognac region. There is no barrel on any coat of arms of famous cognac houses, and indeed of the city itself.

In order for moonshine to taste and smell like more noble cognac or whiskey, you need to figure out how and from what oak chips for moonshine are prepared at home. This is the most important component that allows you to transfer a certain amount of tannins to alcohol, due to which the drink acquires a characteristic amber color and astringent taste. Not everyone knows that in order to prepare a product, it is necessary to select the right raw materials, as well as to know the degree of roasting. From this will hang the fortress of the final result.

Looking for the right tree

When choosing oak, it should be borne in mind that its place of growth is reflected in the taste of an alcoholic beverage, regardless of the purpose for which oak chips are used - cognac, vodka or whiskey. The taste qualities of the same alcohol will differ if the product is insisted on the same species of oak, but growing in different regions.

Even the growth of the tree matters - the Crimean, Krasnodar and Caucasian forests are well suited for Russia

Tasters among all the variations distinguish oak, which grows in France. It is clear that not everyone has the opportunity to get a branch of a real French tree, so we will pay more attention to the domestic flora. Trees from the following regions are suitable for concentration:

• Khadyzhensky;
• Apsheron;
• Afipsky.

It should also be noted that more valuable tree species grow in the Republic of Crimea, Tatarstan, Ukraine, Belarus and the Caucasus.

For moonshine, oak chips obtained from areas with high humidity are not suitable, since they contain a very high concentration of tannins, which spoils the organoleptics of the product.

It matters not only where it grows, but also what you are going to use. We need branches up to 5 years old, but not younger than 2 without bark. The trunk does not fit categorically, the old branches are similar. You can not take blanks from sawmills, where wood is treated with antiseptics.

What affects the change in taste

With the right selection of chips for infusing drinks and following the recommendations of experts, you will get soft-tasting alcohol, with a pleasant tart aftertaste and rich aroma. The change in the characteristics of the drink occurs for the following reasons:

1. Oak chips act as an adsorbent. The pores of the wood material absorb components that boil even at low temperatures. This list includes substances that cannot be completely eliminated in the distillation process. Therefore, long-term infusion in a barrel or on wood chips shows significantly better results than alcohol infused with other raw materials.

It is easier to work with chips - they are suitable for any container, while at the same time adsorbing harmful impurities

1. The composition of the tree contains a variety of chemical elements, they make the drink softer. In addition to the fact that alcohol gets a new taste, color and smell, the components from the wood chips also bind especially dangerous compounds. Therefore, tincture is often prepared for medicinal purposes.
2. If you prepare oak bark for infusion, then you will end up with a "bitters" with a red-brown color. And thanks to the tannin contained in the product, the drink will get a tart aftertaste.

Oak bark contains a large amount of tannin, which gives a tart aftertaste, but compared to chips, the bark is much less valuable.

We make oak chips with our own hands

The product is sold in a specialized store, but those who want to experiment can make oak chips for moonshine with their own hands. For this you need to follow the steps:

• dry part of the log at room temperature for 1-2 weeks and peel it from the bark;

The bark can not be thrown away and left for the preparation of healing infusions.

• cut the log into pegs measuring 20x20x100 mm;
• place the prepared oak chips for cognac or whiskey in clean cold water for a day, while changing the liquid to a new one every 7 hours;
• in a separate container, mix 10 liters of water with 2 tablespoons of soda, send the stakes to infuse for 8 hours, then rinse well;
• then put in a saucepan, fill it with clean water and bring to a boil, boiling for 45-50 minutes;
• place the workpiece on a baking sheet and send it to the oven for 2 hours at different temperatures, depending on the desired taste.

VIDEO: Home cooking technology

Firing time and temperature

Roasting oak chips in the oven is considered an important step; the aroma of future alcohol depends on the level of roasting. To achieve the desired result, you should know how to properly burn the product to obtain different smells:

• minimum processing 2 hours at a temperature up to 120 ° - the smell will give off vanilla, berries and a little smoke

Minimum

• medium 2 hours 150-160°С - aroma of caramel in combination with almonds

Medium Rare (Medium)

• maximum 2 hours 180-185°C - the drink will acquire a rich smoked and chocolate smell with a similar aftertaste

Strong roast

Chips are wrapped tightly in foil before being placed in the oven to prevent smoke from escaping. If this is not done, there will simply be nothing to breathe in the room.

If soot appeared on the logs - black burnt marks, it is no longer possible to use them for tincture.

This is the final stage in the preparation of chips, then you should choose the right base, calculate the required number of stakes (on average 50 grams per liter) and use one of the most suitable tincture recipes.

Which moonshine to choose

After the oak chips for cognac are prepared, you can proceed to the selection of moonshine. There are three main types of raw materials made on:

• fruits;
• grain crops and cereals;
• sugar and yeast.

The first two options are great for making chacha, but it depends on the taste preferences of the taster. The best option is sugar moonshine.

The fact is that fruit or grain distillate has various components that react with the chemical constituents of wood. Such a process can give a completely unexpected result that does not meet the manufacturer's expectations.

As previously reported, fruity notes can be achieved by frying chips - small cubes that are quickly and thoroughly fried. Therefore, before you burn the pegs, you need to understand what taste you are trying to achieve. In addition, you can use special nutritional supplements, a few drops of essence can completely change the smell and taste of alcohol.

Cognac essence - some winemakers add a few drops of concentrated liquid aroma along with infusion on pegs

The process of moonshine on oak chips

After carrying out the above manipulations, you should calculate how much oak chips per liter of moonshine. In this case, the following proportions must be observed:

• moonshine with a strength of 45 ° - 1 l;
• sliver - 40-60 gr.

It turns out that 3 liters of drink will require an average of 150 gr. wood chips. Moonshine should be infused in a glass container or a tank consisting of stainless steel. Bars are placed in it and filled with distillate to the very brim to reduce the volume of air.

Next, the container must be hermetically sealed with a lid, and then placed in a dark, cool place for at least 2 months, and preferably for six months or a year. You can also increase the duration of infusion, the longer this process lasts, the softer the drink will be.

VIDEO: Moonshine on wood chips: apple, cherry, plum, pear, oak

Common Mistakes

Novice distillers, out of inexperience, often make mistakes when making wood chips at home. The result is a tincture with a strange taste of plinth. To avoid an unpleasant situation, the following factors should be considered:

• no need to bake the pegs for a long time, in this case more does not mean better;
• it is not recommended to use a raw log, it contains a large amount of tannins;
• do not use plastic or plastic containers to infuse the drink, the distillate will absorb chemical components and the smell of plastic during the exposure time;
• experts strongly advise against using a large amount of fragrant herbs, spices and other spices in the recipe, as well as insisting the drink on them for a long time;
• do not use an untested recipe when making a large volume of tincture, it is better to first verify the quality of the result by preparing a small container.

VIDEO: Homemade tincture is better than Hennessy

In production, for the same purpose, oak barrels are used from boards of varying degrees of roasting, but in everyday life its purchase is quite expensive. Not quite a complete, but quite a worthy replacement would be wood chips and, to a lesser extent, bark, which can be bought at any pharmacy. How to use it correctly and what to do with it in general - in our article.

What is the use of chips

The cost of a barrel is directly proportional to its volume. Quite small - 5-liter - will cost an average of 4-5 thousand rubles, 50-liter - from 8 thousand, etc. But even this is not bad, with the regular preparation of cognac products you can fork out, but the fact that a barrel is designed for a maximum of 10 refills. After that, there is no longer any use for it - it will just be a storage container. You don't have to be a mathematician to figure out how much pleasure will cost. Oak chips for cognac and whiskey are many times cheaper, especially since you can find it for free - in the nearest forest or in the country house where oaks grow.

You can not use boards from logging enterprises - the wood goes through a stage of chemical treatment from beetles, rotting and to increase the shelf life.

Even if we assume that the tree has not yet been processed, the dubious benefits of such an acquisition are obvious - dusty warehouses, oil and fuel oil from loaders neutralize all the useful properties of the tree.

The easiest way is to find a middle-aged tree in the nearest forest and saw off its branch (may the Greenpeace and environmental inspectorates forgive us). It will be a truly 100% natural product, which will only be chopped into small chips and pre-prepared.

There is an option to buy blanks in specialized stores - 50 grams cost an average of 80-100 rubles. This amount of oak chips is enough to infuse 2.5-3 liters of future cognac.

Oak chips "Premium" (strong firing) cubes - price 112 rubles. for 50 gr.

Log or bark?

In extreme cases, you can use the pharmacy bark, which is sold in all pharmacies. But this is exactly a fallback option, since real cognac will not work on it. Before packaging, it is processed, as a result of which a large amount of tannins is lost. The finished drink will not have an intense aroma and color, and the aftertaste will be completely slurred.

VIDEO: Harvesting technology at home

How to make oak chips for cognac

Do-it-yourself preparation of oak chips for cognac consists of several stages:

1. cleaning

Be sure to after collecting and cutting into pegs with a cross section of 5-7 mm, they are washed under running water from small particles, dust and litter. You need to rinse it 3-4 times, between which it is dried.

1. Soak

The task of this stage is to clean the wood from the inside. You can simply soak the pegs in water at room temperature for a day, or you can add baking soda at the rate of 1 tsp. for every liter of water. Soda in this case absorbs all those substances that the tree managed to gain during its growth. Soak for an average of 2-3 days (changing water every day), after which it is dried again. There is no need to wait until the water becomes clear. This may not work. But some of the substances will go away during the soaking process.

1. Digestion

A very important step, which allows you to avoid the taste of "skirting" in the finished drink in the future. On the other hand, during the process of digestion, the pores open as much as possible, respectively, with alcohol there will be a better composition.

To do this, put the pegs in cold water, bring to a boil, cover with a lid and leave on low heat for a quarter of an hour. After they were taken out, cooled and dried.

1. Burning

Depending on the conditions in which oak chips for cognac are prepared, they can be burned in an oven at a temperature of 160 ° C or over direct fire. The degree of roasting can be different - minimal, medium and intensive. In the future, this affects the color and taste of the drink. We recommend doing all 3 types and insisting on each separately in order to further determine your preferences.

• minimum roasting - a tree of golden color - the taste will be vanilla with a slight bitterness;
• medium - brown - a distinct sound of almonds with caramel notes, bitterness is felt more, but unobtrusively;
• intense - dark brown - in the future, the taste of freshly brewed tea and chocolate will be felt.

If black marks appear on the tree, you cannot use it - it will simply be impossible to drink such cognac.

1. Storage

Store prepared pegs in an airtight container to preserve the flavor of the smoke. It is advisable to use oak chips for moonshine as soon as they are prepared. In this case, all the notes and accents of the fragrance will be preserved. The more the workpiece is stored, the less pronounced the organoleptic will be.

Making homemade cognac

In this case, we are not talking about imitation of the taste of cognac, but about real brandy from grape mash. Try to follow the instructions as accurately as possible so that at the end you get, if not a drink of French masters, but very close to it.

For mash, you need to use sweet grape varieties - Isabella, Lady's finger, Lydia, etc. He must be ripe.

• grapes - 15 kg;
• sugar - 1.5;
• water - 2 liters.
• oak chips.

If sweet juicy southern grapes are used for mash, sugar is not needed at all. In this case, pure grape spirit will be obtained - an ideal basis for brandy.

Cooking:

1. Grapes are removed from the bunch and crushed right along with the seeds.

1. The liquid is poured into a bottle and, if the grapes were not very juicy, sugar is added at the rate of 1 kg of sand for every 10 liters of must. Drinking water is also poured there, it is measured in advance at the rate of 1 liter per 7.5 kg. Cover with cotton cloth and send to a warm dark place for 4 days.

1. The mash is mixed daily with wooden sticks so that the foamy cap of the pulp does not collect - it cuts off oxygen, and the yeast cannot fully develop.

By the end of the first day, you can start stirring the mash to prevent sourness.

1. On the fifth day, the mash will have all the signs of active fermentation - hissing, aroma, the pulp will rise all up. Now the slurry needs to be filtered, and the lumps of berries are squeezed well.
2. Add sugar (a small amount) to the juice, mix with a wooden stick, pour into bottles, leaving a third of the volume unfilled. Close with a water seal and send for 35-40 days in a dark place. The temperature of the mash all this time should be in the range of 19-27 ° C, for which it is convenient to use an aquarium heater.

1. When fermentation stops, the wort will brighten, and the sediment will fall to the bottom, it can be filtered and sent for distillation.
2. Ideally, an alambik (copper apparatus) should be used for distillation, but in the absence of one, a regular one will do. Pour into a distillation cube and run at maximum temperature, without taking away the tails and heads. Stop as soon as the strength of the raw material drops to 30 °.
3. The resulting crude is diluted with water to 8 °, after which it is put into a second distillation. Here, the heads are already selected (no more than 12%) and the tails are cut off - with a decrease in the fortress to 30 °.
4. In order to get wine alcohol in its pure form, it can be sent for the third distillation, for which the raw material is diluted with water to 20 °. Heads (12%) and tails are taken again after 45°. Measure the strength of the distillate and dilute it with water to 42 °.
5. Now comes the turn of insisting on oak chips. On average, the infusion time should be at least six months, but the longer this process goes on, the brighter and richer the taste will be. The maximum holding time is 3 years.

1. Caramelization is an essential step in adding color to the finished drink. This is how they do it in all industries. Caramel is being prepared - 1 tbsp. sugar per 1 tbsp. the water is boiled down to a brown color and added to the strained and filtered drink. Insist 10 days and bottled.

Cognac is ready, now it's time for tasting.

VIDEO: How to make sugar color for homemade cognac

Homemade cognac from moonshine - 2 recipes on oak bark and wood chips ... A recipe that has been tested by generations!

Hennessy for cheaters:

how to make "cognac" from moonshine?

Recipes proven by generations!

Homemade "cognacs" are one of the most common topics of discussion on forums for homemade alcoholic beverages. Their recipes have been perfected for hundreds of years, and now many moonshiners manage to make, if not a complete analogue of real cognac, then its very high-quality replica, which, with proper exposure, becomes an excellent product, tasty, fragrant and beautiful in its own way.

I’ll make a reservation right away - you won’t get “cognac” in the full sense of the word by any of the methods below. However, even the low-grade booze that is sold in our stores is not and cannot be cognac. However, it is quite possible to make a wonderful, very special drink with its own flavor and aroma properties. And your product will be much better than any Koktebel.

Today we will present two of the most common, thousands of times proven recipes - home-made cognac from moonshine on oak bark “in Latgalian style” and the so-called “village” cognac on oak chips.

Homemade cognac from moonshine - recipes on oak bark and wood chips.

On the forums I met the phrase that comparing real and homemade cognac is the same as comparing a living and rubber woman. This approach is completely wrong! Each of these recipes has its own special charm. Cognac from moonshine on oak bark is not a chemical fake, but a living, noble drink, moreover, made by oneself.
Continuing the analogy: if the original cognac is a pretentious Parisian fashion model, with whom, except for the philosophy of Deleuze, there is nothing to talk about (and even only in French), then our home-made “cognac” from moonshine is a healthy village laughter, with which even to the hayloft, even to the BAM construction site, even to Siberian exile.

Cognac from moonshine at home. A little about raw materials.

As already mentioned, it is impossible to make cognac from moonshine with your own hands, but you can make a good, high-quality original drink. Naturally, this requires three things - high-quality alcohol, the right proportion of ingredients and long exposure.

As for the quality of moonshine, all the authors of the recipes are unanimous - it should be the highest! A good grain double or triple distillate is suitable, or rectified, prepared in a beer column and diluted to the required strength. The best cognacs from moonshine at home are obtained if grape alcohol was used for them - chacha or its simplified counterparts. Now let's talk about the second mandatory ingredient - oak. Do-it-yourself cognac from moonshine can only be made if you have specially prepared wood from this tree. Why is it so important? Chips or chips are, so to speak, an ersatz barrel - a common and affordable replacement for oak wine barrels. What will oak give to our drink?

1. Tannins. Dissolved substances of the tannin group give the drink astringency and a peculiar bitter aroma, which softens with aging.
2. Aromatic acids. During the biosynthesis of lingin contained in wood, natural flavors are released. There are many of them, but first of all it is syringaldehyde (it gives a smell similar to lilac) and more pronounced vanillin. Imagine, it is found not only in vanilla beans and shopping bags, but also, for example, in cinnamon, cloves, olive oil, coffee, and, of course, in oak wood.
3. Lactones and phenolic compounds. Also an important element of the bouquet of drinks aged in barrels or on wood chips. During the heat treatment of wood, substances of the furan series are formed in it, giving our cognac the very aroma of “caramel”.

Oak is the main component of homemade cognac

So, oak is tannins, vanillin and caramel. If not chips or wood chips are used, these flavors and aromas must be artificially communicated to the drink. Therefore, recipes for home-made cognac from moonshine on oak bark often include additional ingredients - for example, natural wine, vanilla sugar or pods, caramel syrup.

In general, enough theory, let's go directly to the recipes for homemade cognac from moonshine.

Cognac in Latgale. Recipe proven by generations!

Latgalian tincture is the most common way to ennoble moonshine “under cognac”. The recipe was invented in Latgale - the historical region of modern Latvia, which has a long tradition of home brewing. There are extremely many variations of this drink, but there is one classic recipe that has been used for generations and always gives a good, stable result. We will bring him.

Ingredients:

• 3 liters of moonshine at least double distilled, diluted to 50 degrees.
• Oak bark (sold in a pharmacy) - 2 tablespoons. I recommend that you pre-soak the bark for 10 minutes in boiling water, dry it, and only after that put it in a drink, otherwise it will contain too many tannins. You can also replace the bark with an equal amount of oak chips.
• 3 cloves.
• Nutmeg (whole) - 1/5 part or ground - on the tip of a knife.
• Coriander - 1 crushed grain or ground - approximately 0.5 grams.
• Sugar - 3 tablespoons.

Cooking:

1. Sugar must first be dissolved in a small amount of moonshine, as an option - make it simplecaramel syrup .
2. We put all the ingredients in a jar, pour in moonshine and add syrup, shake everything well and set aside in a dark place.
3. The infusion time is from two weeks, but not more than a month, so that the alcohol base does not draw too much tannins out of the bark. When insisting on the battery, the time is reduced to a week - 10 days, but this is not a very correct method, it is better to wait.
4. After the tincture has acquired a brown color and a bright aroma, it must be filtered, bottled and kept for at least six months in a dark place.
   They say that after two years of aging, Latgalian cognac becomes especially pleasant. With each month of rest, the drink becomes more and more rich, soft and similar to real cognac!

   Homemade cognac from moonshine. Country style recipe

   This version of the drink, in principle, is similar to the previous one, but it uses much more ingredients, and there are many cooking variations - for every taste. I will describe recipes that use oak chips, so before you make cognac from moonshine in this way, you will need to prepare the material. Well, or buy it in special stores. How to prepare and burn oak chips is written at the end of this article.

   Ingredients:

   • Good moonshine 45-50 degrees - 3 liters;
   • Oak chips of medium roast - 6 pieces 10 cm long and about 4 × 4 mm thick.
   • Sugar - 2 tablespoons (for caramel syrup);
   • Rosehip - 15 small berriesin this article );
   • 3-4 black peppercorns;
   • A teaspoon of large-leaf black tea (it is better to take a good one, as a cheap one can be dyed);
   • St. John's wort - 1 small sprig or a teaspoon without the top of the pharmacy ground. This ingredient is better to put less than more.

   Cooking:

   1. Make caramel syrup - light brown.
   2. Put all the ingredients in a jar, pour alcohol, add caramel, close the lid tightly.
   3. Insist in a dark place for a week, then pull out the prunes (if you use it) and vanilla.
   4. The total infusion time is from two weeks to a month (no more), the jar needs to be shaken periodically.
   5. When the aroma has become pronounced, and the color is dark enough, the liquid must be filtered through several layers of gauze, then through a cotton filter.
   6. Leave to rest in the bottle for at least 3 months, preferably longer, in a dark, cool place, so that the tannins in the drink soften, the tastes become friends and rounded, and the aroma becomes softer. If a precipitate appears after settling, filter again.

   As we can see, it is not so difficult to prepare cognac from moonshine at home, the drink turns out to be beautiful, fragrant, with a multifaceted taste. The longer you keep it, the better it will be!

   Preparation of oak chips at home

   And now let's talk about the ingredient that is included in many recipes for homemade cognac from moonshine - oak chips. She does it this way.

   1. A dry oak chock or log is taken from a trunk or a thick branch.
   2. The wood is carefully split along the grain. It has been proven that alcohol penetrates wood by 2 mm, so the optimal chip size is 4×4 mm.
   3. Chips are placed in cold water for 12 hours.
   4. After this time, the old water is drained, and the chips are poured with fresh water, in which you need to put soda - about a teaspoon per 5 liters.
   5. After 12 hours of infusion, the water is drained again, the chips are placed in a colander and placed on a steam bath - they need to be steamed, not boiled.
   6. Our raw materials are also steamed for about 12 hours, on low heat. When the water that boils in a saucepan turns brown, it must be drained and replaced with fresh water.
   7. Now the chips need to be pulled out and dried in the air for the same 12 hours.
   8. The next step is warming up. The tree must be laid out on a wire rack and put in the oven at a temperature of about 150 degrees. Keep for about 4 hours.
   9. After another 12 hours, repeat the procedure. At this stage, a pleasant smell of vanilla and caramel should appear. We hold again for 4 hours, let's rest for another 12.
   10. And the final stage is the actual roasting. To do this, the oven must be turned on at 200 degrees, if there is, set the grill mode. Bake until the wood chips begin to smoke. Once that's happened, you're all set!

   
   

   As we can see, preparing oak chips for cognac from moonshine at home is a rather long process, but not very laborious. This is useful if you are going to be making a lot of oak aged drinks. Such material is stored indefinitely in a warm, dry place, it can be used as needed.
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Oak barrels for brandy are not just containers, they are actually an ingredient without which it is impossible to get a full-fledged drink. Cognac, which once arose as a winemaker's mistake, has become a cult drink, and for this reason, deviations from the rules are unacceptable here. Cooking cognac must be carried out in oak barrels, and the cognac itself must have a bright smell of oak wood. The drink receives this woody aroma from barrels in which the drink matures for several years.

1

It is generally accepted that real barrels for real cognac are made only from French oak, which has lived for about 80 years. However, in order to produce the entire amount of cognac produced by the winemakers of the world, all the oaks in France would have to be cut down, and even then there would be a shortage of vessels for this noble drink. For this reason, a cognac barrel is made from any oak. But reservations are still needed. The oak that will become the barrel must be large, old enough and grown in a good forest in ecologically clean conditions.

French oak cognac barrels

Oak barrels are made as follows:

1. Oak trunks are cut into boards of the same size and stacked on special racks so that there is free space between the boards. Drying lasts eight months. It is impossible to force this process, the boards must be dried in natural conditions. Not only that, during the drying process, cracks do not occur, the boards are watered from time to time.
2. Dried boards are sawn into identical small boards, in accordance with the barrel production standard. Their drying time is 3-4 months. Boards are watered from time to time. At the end of drying, the surface of the boards should turn black.
3. Dried blackened planks are planed and first one half of the barrel is collected. A metal hoop is put on it.
4. This half of the barrel is roasted on a brazier in order to burn the inner surface. This is necessary so that the fire softens the surface of the oak planks, which causes the glucose stored in the wood to come out on the inner surface. From glucose, a layer of sugar is formed, which will participate in the production of the skate.
5. Assembly of the second half. The firing procedure is performed for her.
6. The whole barrel is finally pulled together with hoops that fix it. The assembled side parts must be sanded.
7. The production of a barrel for cognac is completed by setting the bottom on a special apparatus and burning the filler hole with a special heated sting, for which corks are made from the same tree. The cork for each barrel will be unique.

Thus, in order for cognac, and not cognac drink, to be produced in a wooden barrel, it is necessary that:

• the barrel was made entirely of oak, including cork (metal, plastic and other wood are not allowed to come into contact with cognac);
• the barrel has undergone a roasting procedure, as a result of which sugar would stand out;
• for the first time, the barrel produced was as sterile as possible, since the presence of microorganisms inside in large quantities can spoil the cognac production process.

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2

Gourmets and winemakers believe that cognac is only French, everything else is a cognac-like drink. This is due to the fact that for the first time this drink was produced in Cognac. Since then, the French monopoly on true cognac has been enshrined in numerous laws, both in France itself and in international law. This monopoly was broken at the beginning of the 20th century by the Russian industrialist Nikolai Shustov, who received permission to call his products cognac. Its factories were located in Odessa and Yerevan. This is how the brand of Armenian cognac appeared.

Brand of Armenian cognac "Shustov"

Cognac matures in an oak barrel, more precisely, there the wine material becomes cognac, as it interacts with oak. Cognac is made from grape wine, which is produced from grape varieties with high acidity and disease resistance. Juice is pressed from the grapes, which undergoes fermentation. This is actually the production of wine. The use of sugar in this process is strictly prohibited. Fermentation lasts about three weeks. After that, the resulting wine is sent for distillation. The strength of such wine should not exceed 9% alcohol. If the process of wine production was completely natural, then it will simply not be possible to obtain an initial product of greater strength.

Distillation is, simply put, the production of moonshine. In fact, this is a preparation for obtaining cognac alcohol. First, the initial distillate or raw alcohol is obtained, the strength of which does not exceed 32%. Distillation can be carried out with or without sediment filtration. Raw alcohol produced on the lees contains the maximum amount of aromatic and taste sensations. But this process is delicate and risky.

Raw alcohol is sent for secondary distillation, after which cognac alcohol is obtained, which has a strength close to medical alcohol (about 70%). But it's not cognac. This is just the most purified wine alcohol. But this is where the preparation for production ends and the production of the skate itself begins.

This stage is the simplest in terms of technology, but the longest in time. It's just that alcohol of the second distillation is poured into an oak barrel and waited for about 70 years. It can be longer, but the age of the skate is measured only in years up to 70 and 70. Then the drink is poured into glassware, in which it can be stored forever without changing its properties.

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