ABSTRACT

This chapter provides a general description of the principles of distillation with focus on the production of either brandies or high-quality spirit, from grape-derived materials, for use in beverage production. Phase diagrams are described for ideal twocomponent systems, followed by the nonideal nature of the water-ethanol mixture, along with the corresponding McCabe-Thiele diagrams. The focus of the distillation equipment is conned to pot stills and continuous distillation columns. These techniques are commonly used for commercial distillation and they also provide a good contrast in approaches to distilling ethanol-water mixtures. As well as the distillation of ethanol, the behavior of the minor components during distillation is also described for both pot stills and fractional distillation columns. Comprehensive coverage of other distillation equipment and more complex systems (i.e., three-component mixtures) are beyond the scope of this chapter and are available in Doherty et al. (2008).