Making bourbon at home is a useful, fun, and satisfying hobby all at the same time! Distilling alcohol has been a thing for many years now, with people from way back in the day using processes that have given birth to the ones we're using today.
Making alcohol at home is easy enough. There's quality equipment out there that's fairly easy to use and you can get all the ingredients and instructions you need to make your wash in a home-brewing kit.
However, taking that wash and turning it into bourbon with a smooth, unique, and specific taste takes a little more than following instructions. It requires a steady hand, sharpened senses, and a mind open for creativity and adventure! It also requires bourbon essences!
Bourbon Essences: What Are They?
When talking about bourbon essences I'm basically talking about bourbon flavoring. You can find a variety of bourbon flavoring in stores that sell distilling supplies. It can also be found in other places, though I'd recommend sticking to the professionals.
Bourbon essences are basically concentrated flavouring that you add to your clear alcohol compound to turn it into the drink of your choice. Usually sold in small bottles of about 50 millilitres, they can produce up to 3,5 litres of tasty, quality bourbon, depending on the type of essence you're looking at.
When talking about types, there are really quite a few you can choose from! When you find that one perfect brewing shop, you'll see what I mean. Flavours can range from classic American and cherry bourbon to ones that have more intricate tastes, with smokey notes hiding in between the mix.
Bourbon essences allow you to create your very own bourbon flavours as well as produce a type that's not unique, but is still delicious!
What Flavours Can You Get?
As I said, the range of flavours is vast and full of wonders! If you're a beginner and you don't really know your way around, purchasing a kit will make things much easier for you as it includes everything you need to start out and you can also choose it depending on the flavour you want!
Once you get a bit more seasoned in the game, though, things can get really interesting.
If you're a fan of a specific type of bourbon sold in stores, but you don't want to pay high dollar for a bottle or you just really like making your own stuff at home, bourbon essences are your answer!
You can get bourbon flavoring essences that will perfectly mimic the tastes of your favourite store-bought bourbons, saving you money and adding to the fun of the experience. A fraction of the cost isn't even near at describing how budget-friendly essences are. For example, a bottle of essence to mimic the taste of JD goes for about 8 bucks and can produce a little over 2 litres of beverage. Compare that to the price you'd pay for a single bottle of this bourbon and the math speaks for itself!
Other than money-saving, bourbon essences allow you to customize your drinks and make them more unique by adding other consumables along with the flavouring. Once you get the gist of the whole thing you can really play around and impress both yourself and your friends every time with a bourbon that's uniquely yours and can be tasted only at your house!
Aside from concentrates, you can also get flavouring in the shape of oak chips. These oak chips come from barrels used at distilleries and can produce quality bourbon in a week. What's more, once you've made one batch, you can reuse them a second time for another batch of flavourful bourbon! You can reuse them a third time as well, though you'll need to add an essence to enhance the taste!
This type of flavouring is a bit more expensive and retails for about 35 bucks. 500 grams of them can produce about 7 litres of quality bourbon in total.
How To Use Them
Once you've chosen your preferred essence, it's time to actually use it! This is the really fun part!
You'll need to start by adding all the ingredients that make your wash. The wash is the compound you get after you've added carbon, yeast and sugar to your water and setting off the process.
The wash has a certain amount of alcohol in it, but you don't want "a certain amount", you want a kick. To get this, you'll need to go through the careful process of basically extracting the alcohol from your wash and allowing it to sit for a bit there. This will give you a tasteless, but potent beverage you can then add your essence to, to turn it into that quality bourbon you're looking for!
When it comes to adding the essence, you'll need to have a steady hand and make sure your measuring is correct. There are instructions on when to add the essence and how much essence you actually need to add to a certain amount of base, so make sure you follow these.
Adding too much can ruin the whole batch, and adding too little can have a similar effect! The whole point of the essences is to have fun with them, experiment, but still be careful about it. Recklessness and alcohol never really mix, do they?
Once you've added your essence, you can add more ingredients in the batch to enhance the flavour or change it up a little bit. Then, it's time to leave it to sit for a while, typically a week, so that everything can blend together, creating a powerful union of flavours you'll really love!
To Wrap Up
There are three things I'd like for you to take away from this article. The first one is that distilling is fun and you should definitely try it. The second is that experimenting with flavours is great, but there's nothing wrong with going straight for the money and producing your very own replica of a beverage you love. The third, and most important thing, is for you to remember that no matter what type of flavouring you're buying you should always make sure you're getting it from a trusted vendor.
Putting just anything in your body, especially when it's a concentrate, can have serious harmful consequences and I'd hate to see you have a bad experience! To avoid this, read reviews, do your research, and take all the steps needed to ensure a positive outcome!
Distilling your own alcohol is fun, but it's also no joke, so make sure you're following all the instructions to the T, especially if you're a youngling in the world of making your own booze. Once you're seasoned, I still recommend caution, but also encourage creativity! That's really what matters in the end, isn't it?
