Tag: production

In a column still, live steam is injected straight into the descending wash, and steam sterilises the tanks and lines that later hold spirit and blending water. That makes boiler water a food-contact input in law — the US regulates the amines dosed into it by name and by parts per million in the steam, the EU by outcome, India by potability. Almost no distillery specification mentions it.

Most of what a distiller boils is water — a spirit still charged at 25% ABV is three-quarters water by volume, and a gin still is charged at 40–60% ABV on purpose. Charge strength is a deliberate setting that governs reflux, extraction and safety, and the water used to set it is a process input with its own specification. Here is why distillers dilute before they distil, and what that water has to be.