Tag: production

Making Sugar from Cane and Beets

In the continuing study of sugar, today we'll look at how sugar is made today.

According to Sugar.org, this is how sugar is made from either beets or cane.

For sugar cane:

❧ Grinding the cane to extract the juice;
❧ Boiling the juice until the syrup thickens and crystallizes;
❧ Spinning the crystals in a centrifuge to produce raw sugar;
❧ Shipping the raw sugar to a reﬁnery where it is,
❧ Washed and ﬁltered to remove remaining non-sugar ingredients and color; and
❧ Crystallized, dried and packaged.

Beet sugar processing is similar, but it is done in one continuous process without the raw sugar stage. The sugar beets are washed, sliced and soaked in hot water to separate the sugar-containing juice from the beet ﬁber. The sugar-laden juice is puriﬁed, ﬁltered, concentrated and dried in a series of steps similar to sugar cane processing.

The below illustration I took from the pamphlet on Sugar.org called "How Well Do You Know Sugar?" located at this link.

(Click for larger size pop-up. Image property of Sugar.org.)

The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link.

September 27, 2011
Announcing the Sugar Spirit Project

Today marks the launch of the second Sponsored Project on Alcademics: The Sugar Spirit. The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum.

Rum is made from any sugarcane derivative and is the real sugar spirit, but in this research project I'll primarily be studying sugar itself.

In writing about cocktails, we often come across recipes calling for different forms of sugar: demerara, muscovado, evaporated organic cane, superfine, etc. I've wanted to study the differences in those sugars for quite a while now so I'm thankful to Bacardi Rum for giving me the support to do so.

Along the way, I'll be looking at the history of sugarcane, its byproducts (including molasses, of course), modern and historical production methods, forms and uses, and much more.

I've put up an outline of future topics for discussion and experimentation. The outline is on the project index page, which can be reached by following this link or clicking the Sugar Spirit project logo above from any blog page you see it on.

This is going to get pretty nerdy, and I know that's how you like it.

The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link.

August 9, 2011
The History and Production of Angostura Bitters

In March I visited the Angostura distillery in Port of Spain, Trinidad. They make not only Angostura Bitters here but also the line of Angostura rums and rums for several other brands. In this post, I'll focus on the bitters.

The History of Angostura Bitters

Angostura Bitters were created in 1824 by Dr. Johann Siegert. They were originally called "Dr. Siegert's Aromatic Bitters" and later renamed Angostura Bitters. (The folks from The Bitter Truth Bitters have some interesting information about a lawsuit over the name "Angostura" between these bitters and Abbott's Bitters.)

(One of the other Angostura Bitters bottles from around the world on display at the museum.)

The bitters were created for tropical stomach ailments in Venezuela, as Dr. Siegert was the Surgeon General of Simon Bolivar's army. In fact the town of Angostura is now called Ciudad Bolivar. The bitters were first exported to England in 1830.

(Simon Bolivar)

According to this good history on Angostura's website, Siegert's son exhibited the bitters in England in 1862 where they were mixed with gin. Thus the Pink Gin was born.

(Angostura used to produce Pink Rum – rum laced with Angostura Bitters.)

After Dr. Siegert died in 1870, his sons relocated the business from the politically unstable Venezuela to Trinidad in 1875. The company was renamed Angostura Bitters in 1904. Sometime shortly after this, the son in charge of Angostura lost all of his money in bad business deals and Angostura was taken by his creditors.

Why is the Angostura Bitters Label Too Big for the Bottle?

For a competition of some sort, one brother designed the bottle and another brother designed the label. By the time they figured out they should have consulted each other on the size of each, it was too late to change. On the advice of a judge in the contest, they kept it as their signature. Here, our tour guide does a better job of explaining it in this 1-minute video.

How Are Angostura Bitters Produced?

The secret ingredients for the bitters are shipped from wherever they come from to England. There the ingredients are put into coded bags and shipped to Trinidad. I believe they said they have a long-standing arrangement with customs that the bags are not inspected when they arrive in Trinidad to maintain their secret.

At the distillery, there are five people known as "manufacturers" who prepare the ingredients. They weigh out the relative quantities of each in a room known as the Sanctuary. The ingredients are then dropped into a crusher that crushes them all together as they fall into the room below – the Bitters Room.

At the base of the crusher are carts that hold the ingredients. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the room due to the high-proof alcohol vapors (but later did of the bartenders there), but we did get to peak into the crushed herbs. I remember seeing largish chunks of something that looked like gum arabic, and a lot of rice-sized grey grains about the size of lavender seeds, though I doubt they were because there was a lot of them. (There you go: gum arabic and lavender- make your own Angostura at home 🙂 )

The crushed herbs then go into a "percolator" tank with 97% alcohol to extract their flavor. After this infusion is done, the liquid is then transferred to another tank where brown sugar and caramel color are added. Then the liquid is transferred again and distilled water is added to bring them down to the 44.7% alcohol level for bottling.

This is all done in a relatively small room with a bunch of tanks in it. It's impressive that the world's supply of Angostura Bitters is made here.

Later that day, they did publicity shots with the bartenders in the Bitters Room. They let the professional photographers take photos and let me take them without flash. As you can see the bitters tanks have the bottle labels on them. Except in this case, they actually fit.

March 15, 2011
Chartreuse Secrets

Some friends who meditate told me about the movie Into Great Silence, which follows the Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps. As I barely stop talking you can bet they weren't telling me about its depiction of the silent lifestyle of the monks as something of interest, but because there is footage of them making the famous liqueur Chartreuse.

So I rented the movie and the bonus disc on Netflix. I fell asleep watching the main disc (twice!) and didn't see anything about the liqueur. But on the bonus disc, which you can rent separately and skip all the chanting, there is about ten minutes focusing on making Chartreuse.

In it, a monk goes about weighing dried herbs. You can see about four of them but I couldn't identify them. It was a combination of dried leaves, flowers, some seed stuff, and some roots. If I had the time I'd do screen caps and we'd play "guess the herb."

The monk then grinds them together and places them into a sack. He then hands them off to the distillery where other people distil them. I'm assuming much of the secret of Chartreuse comes from this combination of herbs, roots, bark, etc. that is delivered to the distillers already ground up so they can't guess what the components are.

The monk interviewed in the story says there are 130 plants used to make Chartreuse but, "There is no need to seek to know more," about the production, because they aren't telling.

However, the film then goes on to reveal more: The ground plants are infused in alcohol, water is added, then this is distilled. The distillate, which would be clear at that point, then undergoes seven or eight macerations with more plants that give it its characteristic color.

I believe they said it takes a month to make a batch of Chartreuse. No wonder the stuff is expensive.

The liquid is then sent to the cellar, where it ages first in large vats, then in smaller ones. The liquids are then reblended and sold.

I know of a few people who have visited the Chartreuse facility but apparently you don't get to see the monks; just the aging vats. I'm not sure what else, but I do still want to go in person one day. This film was a little peek behind the curtain to see what happens before it goes into the barrel.

February 16, 2011
All About Cognac

I went to Cognac last week to learn about cognac. I learned a lot.

So what is cognac, anyway?

Cognac is an aged brandy distilled from grapes in the Charente region of France.

The Cognac region is separated into six delimited subregions based primarily on the makeup of the soil: Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, Fine Bois, Bons Bois, and Bois Ordinaires. The Grande and Petite Champagne regions have the most chalky soil.

Planted in the region is mostly Ugni Blanc grapes, with others like Folle Blanche and Columbard sometimes also used to make cognac. These grape varieties make horrible table wine, but are good for distillation. They are high in acid and low in alcohol content at harvest. The flavors in this largely neutral grape are concentrated through distillation and are teased out over aging in oak barrels.

Grapes grown in the Grande and Petite Champagne region are able to age a long time, while those from the outer regions need less time in wood to show their full and fruity potential. Thus many brands reserve their Grande and Petite Champagne-produced barrels for their longer-aged blends.

First the grapes must be harvested in the fall, then fermented into wine and distilled. Most harvesting is mechanical. Fermentation is started with yeast recommended by the government. Distillation runs through the winter and must legally be finished by the end of March, though most are finished far sooner. Cognac must be twice distilled in pot stills limited in size to 25 hectoliters in usable volume.

Most cognac is aged in oak from the French Limousin or Troncais forests, and purchased from the government-run forest agency. Most of the trees used for barrels are 100 years old. French oak is high in tannins that help spirits age longer and add structure to the mouthfeel of the finished product.

The aging process is not as static as you might think. First, newly made spirit is added to newish (up to 3-5 years old) barrels as these contain the most tannins. Depending on the cognac house and the previous number of uses of the barrel, the spirit may sit in new barrels for just a couple months to more than a year. Then the spirit is moved to old barrels where the tannins in the wood have less effect, but the porousness of wood allows continued interaction with the outside world via oxidation and evaporation.

Most all cognac is a blend of aged spirit (eau de vie) from many vineyards and many different vintages. It is the master blender's job to ensure consistency of a blended cognac product despite a big variation in the individual eau de vies that go into it.

Cognac labeled VS must be a minimum of 2 years, VSOP has a 4 year minimum, and Napoleon and XO have a six year minimum though this is being raised to 10 years for XO in 2016 (most XO's on the market are already older than ten years and won't have to change). Cognacs may be single vintage bottlings (all eau de vie comes from a single year) and labeled on the bottle. They may not say an average or minimum age on the bottle (example: "ten years old") as they can with scotch whisky.

Older blends are not just further aged versions of younger blends- they are usually separate products. For example, a brand may compose their VS product primarily of eau de vie from the Fine Bois, while for their XO products most will come from Grande Champagne.

Cognac production is rather interesting, in that most cognac houses are only blending and aging houses. They do not traditionally own their own vineyards or their own distilleries, and they don't even need to own the aging facilities. (In reality the brands I visited owned some vineyards and distilleries but nothing close to the amount for their full production. It seems most all houses age most of their own eau de vie rather than buy it already aged.)

The "big four" cognac houses that make up around 75-80% of the world market are Hennessy, Martell, Courvoisier, and Remy Martin. There are many smaller houses, of course, and some of these own vineyards and distill, age, and blend on-site.

In future blog posts, I'll talk about some brand specifics.

September 21, 2009