Every town and village has locally made herb liquor, 'Kräuterlikör' i.e. Jägermeister, made with whatever fruits, berries, and herbs grow locally. At the smaller neighborhood Schänke, they would offer several options to suit different tastes, many in unmarked bottles. A shot is the traditional way to end a meal or drinking session. Its an outdated practice, but at the end of a meal at such a place, the guest can say that the meal was very rich or fatty and so a shot of 'liver glue' is required to digest it. According to tradition a shot of herb liquor would be provided 'on the house'. I only had the nerve to try it once, the old Frau had a belly laugh and brought shots for the entire table
Run once? What kind of still? I use a pot still, first run takes it from 5-10% up to ~40%, second run takes it up to ~85% with plenty of flavor. I have distilled things 3+ times to really clean the flavor but beyond that it's basically vodka so what's the point? I don't filter at all because proper distillation compresses the undesirables into the heads and tails where they can be isolated, diluted, and distilled yet again to yield even more clean, smooth hearts. Every run is the same, high% and heads up front, good stuff in the middle, low% and fading into wet cardboard tails at the back.
The Scots and the Norse would ferment buttermilk (whey left over from making butter). In the north of Scotland this was still done to the early part of the 20th Century. The wine was very low alcohol (about 2-3 %) and was called blaand (as in blond, not bland). and was carried in kegs by fishermen and crofters. I have heard an old recording of someone talking about their memory of blaand telling the anthropologist who was interviewing that blaand was both the very first drink a baby would know - yes, before it tasted its mother's milk, and was the last taste the dying would know before they passed away. When dairies replaced cottage industry blaand was forgotten but it is slowly, slowly making a comeback and I see that there are now a few distilleries that specialize in using whey as their "mash or "wash". Not sure if they transform the lactose into glucose by adding lactase (there is about 20 points of gravity in my whey.. or they simply add sugar to the whey and ferment ON the whey - for flavor - and then distill that wine. (I add about 2 lbs of sugar to the whey after I have a) boiled it to stop any additional bacterial activity changing lactose into lactic acid, and b) after I have added about 5 lactase tabs to convert the lactose.
This is super fascinating, please share any findings.
Do you think the whey left over from straining yogurt would be good for this use? I occasionally have made greek style yogurt and usually end up using the whey to make rice, but I would be game to try fermenting it too!
