TYPES OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Fermented Beverages
In order to carry out fermentation, we need to feed some kind of carbohydrates to the yeasts. The choice of carbohydrates determines a great deal about the final product.
Beers
In order to carry out fermentation, we need to feed some kind of carbohydrates to the yeasts. The choice of carbohydrates determines a great deal about the final product.
Beers
are produced by fermenting grains -- usually barley, but also wheat, corn, millet, or rice. (The Japanese drink sake, while usually described as "rice wine," is essentially a beer made from rice instead of barley.)
Pictured: Hops, a flower added to beer before fermentation to impart a bitter taste.
Wines
Pictured: Hops, a flower added to beer before fermentation to impart a bitter taste.
Wines
are produced by fermenting fruits; generally, the word "wine" alone means "grape wine," while other wines will be referred to by the name of the fruit -- e.g. "plum wine," "blackberry wine," etc. [1] Grape wines come in two main types, red or white, depending on the type of grape used and whether the skin is left on. Given that more has been written about these kinds of wines than all other beverages put together, I'll refrain from going into detail about this subject.
Pictured: Amarone, a wine made from raisins.
These are the two most common types of fermented beverages, but there are other types of high-carbohydrate foods that can be fermented. Mead is made by fermenting honey. It was very popular in Western Europe hundreds of years ago, then fell from favor for a long time, but is currently enjoying something of a resurgence. Milk, too, can be fermented, although there is to my knowledge no common English word for this category of beverage; it's generally called something like koumiss in the local languages where it's drunk. Some tree and plant saps can be fermented as well; again, I don't know of an English word for the category, but pulque is the most prominent example.
Pictured: Pulque, a drink made by fermenting the sap of the Maguey agave plant.
Distilled beverages
We can produce higher-alcohol beverages by distilling fermented alcohols. (Distillation is the chemical name for any process that separates particular chemicals out of a mixture. In this case, we're removing water from a mixture of alcohol and water, resulting in a higher alcohol concentration). There are different kinds of distillation processes, and they do matter, but I'll skip over them for the most part here.
Usually, you do not just drink these right after distilling them -- they'll often be aged in casks made of specific types of wood (where they pull flavor from the wood), or have additional flavors added to them after fermentation. [2]
One example is brandy (short for brandywine, meaning "burnt wine"), which is made by distilling wine. Again, there are all kinds of fruits, so there are all kinds of brandies; the word "brandy" alone usually refers to brandies made from (grape) wine which have been aged in casks. Cognac and Armagnac are two types of this sort of brandy. Unaged brandies may be known as eau de vie ( "water of life" in French), generally together with the name of the fruit, e.g. "eau de vie de framboise" would be an unaged raspberry brandy. Other notable brandies include Pisco, an unaged grape brandy from South America; Calvados, a French apple brandy aged in oak casks; Kirschwasser, an unaged brandy made from cherries without the pits removed; and Grappa, an unaged brandy from Italy made from grapes with their skins and stems left intact.
Pictured: Poire William, a pear-based eau de vie. (The pear inside the bottle is primarily decorative.)
These are the two most common types of fermented beverages, but there are other types of high-carbohydrate foods that can be fermented. Mead is made by fermenting honey. It was very popular in Western Europe hundreds of years ago, then fell from favor for a long time, but is currently enjoying something of a resurgence. Milk, too, can be fermented, although there is to my knowledge no common English word for this category of beverage; it's generally called something like koumiss in the local languages where it's drunk. Some tree and plant saps can be fermented as well; again, I don't know of an English word for the category, but pulque is the most prominent example.
Pictured: Pulque, a drink made by fermenting the sap of the Maguey agave plant.
Distilled beverages
We can produce higher-alcohol beverages by distilling fermented alcohols. (Distillation is the chemical name for any process that separates particular chemicals out of a mixture. In this case, we're removing water from a mixture of alcohol and water, resulting in a higher alcohol concentration). There are different kinds of distillation processes, and they do matter, but I'll skip over them for the most part here.
Usually, you do not just drink these right after distilling them -- they'll often be aged in casks made of specific types of wood (where they pull flavor from the wood), or have additional flavors added to them after fermentation. [2]
One example is brandy (short for brandywine, meaning "burnt wine"), which is made by distilling wine. Again, there are all kinds of fruits, so there are all kinds of brandies; the word "brandy" alone usually refers to brandies made from (grape) wine which have been aged in casks. Cognac and Armagnac are two types of this sort of brandy. Unaged brandies may be known as eau de vie ( "water of life" in French), generally together with the name of the fruit, e.g. "eau de vie de framboise" would be an unaged raspberry brandy. Other notable brandies include Pisco, an unaged grape brandy from South America; Calvados, a French apple brandy aged in oak casks; Kirschwasser, an unaged brandy made from cherries without the pits removed; and Grappa, an unaged brandy from Italy made from grapes with their skins and stems left intact.
WISKY
, on the other hand, is essentially distilled beer, though the sort of "beer" you distill to make whiskey is a bit different from the sort of beer you would normally drink; for instance, it doesn't contain hops (a flower added to beer to give it a bitter flavor). Common types of cask-aged whiskey include Scotch (malted barley), Irish whiskey (malted barley or grain), Bourbon (corn), Rye (rye), Canadian whiskey (rye), and Tennessee whiskey (corn). [3] Of course, these styles come down to more than just the grains used. For instance, Islay Scotches -- my favorite of all alcoholic beverages -- use malt dried over a peat fire, which gives them a unique smoky taste that's not present in other whiskies, and Tennessee whiskies (of which there are exactly two, namely Jack Daniel's and George Dickel) are put through a charcoal mellowing process. The most common unaged whiskey is Corn Whiskey. I personally do not recommend drinking this.
Pictured: A peat stack, used to dry and flavor the malt used in the type of Scotch whisky made on Islay and the outer Hebrides.
Let's pause for a brief tangent about styles of whiskey. Scotch will tend to have the most complex flavors and less sweetness than other styles of whisky. There are different regions of Scotland that make different styles of whiskey. Islay (and the rest of the Hebrides), as mentioned above, make smoky-tasting malts. Highlands and Speysides seem to be a bit more beginner-friendly.
For the longest time, rye was pretty much the official whiskey of America. George Washington made his own at Mount Vernon. It's sharper and less cloying than bourbon. The Manhattan cocktail (whiskey, red vermouth, and bitters) would have originally been made with rye. Prohibition changed all that by giving America a good sock right in the sophistication. Coming out, we preferred sweeter and less subtle drinks like bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, which pretty much took rye out of the running. Fortunately, it has been seeing something of a resurgence recently.
Pictured: Rye.
Rum
is a liquor distilled from fermented sugarcane byproducts. [4] The word "rum" alone usually refers to liquors made from molasses, which is a by-product of extracting sugar from sugarcane. It can be cask-aged for varying amounts of time, resulting in light rums and dark rums. Some types of rum, like Cachaça and Rhum Agricole, are instead made from sugarcane juice. (Some people might just use "rum" to denote molasses liquors, and put the sugarcane juice liquors in their own category.)
Pictured: A Caipirinha -- the national drink of Brazil -- which is a cocktail of
Cachaça, sugar, and lime. A stick of sugarcane (for decoration or stirring) is visible in the glass.
Tequila is a liquor distilled from fermented agave hearts. (Agave is a plant in the same family as the asparagus and the yucca.) Like rum it can be aged for different amounts of time. The tequila you normally see is made from the blue agave plant; Mezcal is a tequila made from the Maguey agave.
Pictured: A blue agave plant.
Neutral spirits are a bit different. This term refers to alcohol produced by any method in such a way that any residual flavor is removed and the result is simply pure alcohol and water, or as close as can be efficiently achieved without undue burden. Neutral spirits can be used as the base for a liqueur. Some cheap gins and vodkas are also made from neutral spirits.
Vodka is traditionally made by distilling fermented potato juice. However, due to its neutral flavor, the term is also used nowadays for neutral spirits or similar products. Gin is made by adding juniper berries to neutral spirits, running some kind of "re-distillation" process that I don't even pretend to understand, and then infusing with various herbs and botanicals.
Chinese liquor or "baijiu" in Chinese, technically belongs to the whiskey family, as it's made by distilling fermented sorghum. (Sorghum is a type of grain grown in China.) Most westerners are not used to the flavor of sorghum, and when I've taken my white friends to Chinese bars in SF they often aren't able to stomach these, but I've developed a taste for at least some of them. This is a very wide category, but I don't know anywhere near enough about it to do it justice. The ones I've tried are Erguotou, an inexpensive, clear liquor, and Maotai, which is what they serve the President of the United States at formal dinners when he visits China. [5]
Pictured: Maotai, a sorghum-based liquor of the "sauce-fragrance" type.
Hybrids: Liqueurs, fortified wines, etc.
The beverages above get their flavor primarily or even exclusively from the process by which the alcohol was produced. When they do have additional flavors, they're usually in some sense a byproduct of the process used. Hops are added to beer prior to fermentation, for instance; similarly, while casked liquors do pull a considerable amount of flavor from their casks, the aging is actually required for other reasons as well.
There are many classes of alcoholic beverages, however, which do not get their signature flavors primarily from the process which produces the alcohol, or which contain several types of alcohol made by different processes giving a composite flavor. This is a very broad category and spans some of the best and worst kinds of beverage.
The oldest beverage of this type is probably fortified wine, which is made by mixing wine and liquor, possibly with additional herbs or spices infused. Originally the liquor was added as a preservative, but the style has now evolved to the point that certain fortified wines are among the most valuable wines out there. There are a few important types. Desert wines like Port, Sherry, Madeira, and Marsala are barrel aged and fortified with brandy. Vermouth is fortified with neutral grape spirits and infused with herbs and botanicals. (Sugar is often added as well.) Vermouth is extremely important in cocktails, being integral to the Martini and the Manhattan, which are two of the oldest and best cocktails.
Another important class of beverage are flavored spirits. These are made by infusing various flavors into neutral spirits (or, rarely, into other liquors). Unlike liqueurs, flavored spirits do not have added sugar or juices. Gin is probably the most important; it's made by adding juniper berries and other herbs and botanicals to neutral spirits. (Gin is short for Genever / Jennifer / Guinevere, a name derived from the Juniper plant.) Absinthe, too, was among the most important flavored spirits in its heyday, when it was roughly as popular in Paris as Coca-Cola in the U.S. today. It's made by infusing neutral spirits with anise and a number of herbals and botanicals, including grand wormwood (artemisia absinthium) from which it takes its name. Absinthe was for a long time banned in much of the world after a campaign that associated what were in retrospect effects of severe alcoholism with the wormwood in absinthe. It's now known that drinking absinthe is perfectly safe, and the drink is once again available on store shelves and in bars
Pictured: a grand wormwood plant, used in flavoring absinthe.
Liqueurs
Pictured: A Caipirinha -- the national drink of Brazil -- which is a cocktail of
Cachaça, sugar, and lime. A stick of sugarcane (for decoration or stirring) is visible in the glass.
Tequila is a liquor distilled from fermented agave hearts. (Agave is a plant in the same family as the asparagus and the yucca.) Like rum it can be aged for different amounts of time. The tequila you normally see is made from the blue agave plant; Mezcal is a tequila made from the Maguey agave.
Pictured: A blue agave plant.
Neutral spirits are a bit different. This term refers to alcohol produced by any method in such a way that any residual flavor is removed and the result is simply pure alcohol and water, or as close as can be efficiently achieved without undue burden. Neutral spirits can be used as the base for a liqueur. Some cheap gins and vodkas are also made from neutral spirits.
Vodka is traditionally made by distilling fermented potato juice. However, due to its neutral flavor, the term is also used nowadays for neutral spirits or similar products. Gin is made by adding juniper berries to neutral spirits, running some kind of "re-distillation" process that I don't even pretend to understand, and then infusing with various herbs and botanicals.
Chinese liquor or "baijiu" in Chinese, technically belongs to the whiskey family, as it's made by distilling fermented sorghum. (Sorghum is a type of grain grown in China.) Most westerners are not used to the flavor of sorghum, and when I've taken my white friends to Chinese bars in SF they often aren't able to stomach these, but I've developed a taste for at least some of them. This is a very wide category, but I don't know anywhere near enough about it to do it justice. The ones I've tried are Erguotou, an inexpensive, clear liquor, and Maotai, which is what they serve the President of the United States at formal dinners when he visits China. [5]
Pictured: Maotai, a sorghum-based liquor of the "sauce-fragrance" type.
Hybrids: Liqueurs, fortified wines, etc.
The beverages above get their flavor primarily or even exclusively from the process by which the alcohol was produced. When they do have additional flavors, they're usually in some sense a byproduct of the process used. Hops are added to beer prior to fermentation, for instance; similarly, while casked liquors do pull a considerable amount of flavor from their casks, the aging is actually required for other reasons as well.
There are many classes of alcoholic beverages, however, which do not get their signature flavors primarily from the process which produces the alcohol, or which contain several types of alcohol made by different processes giving a composite flavor. This is a very broad category and spans some of the best and worst kinds of beverage.
The oldest beverage of this type is probably fortified wine, which is made by mixing wine and liquor, possibly with additional herbs or spices infused. Originally the liquor was added as a preservative, but the style has now evolved to the point that certain fortified wines are among the most valuable wines out there. There are a few important types. Desert wines like Port, Sherry, Madeira, and Marsala are barrel aged and fortified with brandy. Vermouth is fortified with neutral grape spirits and infused with herbs and botanicals. (Sugar is often added as well.) Vermouth is extremely important in cocktails, being integral to the Martini and the Manhattan, which are two of the oldest and best cocktails.
Another important class of beverage are flavored spirits. These are made by infusing various flavors into neutral spirits (or, rarely, into other liquors). Unlike liqueurs, flavored spirits do not have added sugar or juices. Gin is probably the most important; it's made by adding juniper berries and other herbs and botanicals to neutral spirits. (Gin is short for Genever / Jennifer / Guinevere, a name derived from the Juniper plant.) Absinthe, too, was among the most important flavored spirits in its heyday, when it was roughly as popular in Paris as Coca-Cola in the U.S. today. It's made by infusing neutral spirits with anise and a number of herbals and botanicals, including grand wormwood (artemisia absinthium) from which it takes its name. Absinthe was for a long time banned in much of the world after a campaign that associated what were in retrospect effects of severe alcoholism with the wormwood in absinthe. It's now known that drinking absinthe is perfectly safe, and the drink is once again available on store shelves and in bars
Pictured: a grand wormwood plant, used in flavoring absinthe.
Liqueurs
are made by adding flavorings and sugar to neutral spirit base (or, rarely, another liquor.) This is an absolutely huge category in and of itself, comprising both the relatively obvious choices like creme de menthe (mint), creme de cacao (chocolate), coffee liqueur, amaretto (bitter almond and/or apricot kernel liqueur), raspberry liqueur, and so forth, as well as aperitif and digestif bitters such as Italian amaros, Campari , Cynar, Fernet, and Suze.
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