Cinnamon stick in the bottle...?

[RexLaCroix]

This year the harvest from the orchard was the best in recent memory. Heck, I'm pretty sure it was the best year my family ever had. Especially the Cortlands. I had enough bushels, I could have made just under a hecto of xxx batch. But with the cold weather, I bet that batch would have frozen a few times if it had been left outside in one of the barrels. And I would have been left with jack.

With Thanksgiving coming up, I would love to give a bottle of special applejuice to my extended family members and carry on my grandfather's traditions. Folks still talk about the very tasty applejuice he used to make, and some folks seem to recall he'd give them out in shoulder size glass bottles with a single cinnamon stick inside. Though I agree that's an odd size to package applejuice, there happens to be a number of those bottles in his workshop.

Hypothetically, if I were to store some apple juice or very strong apple cider for later consumption, would it be a poor idea to leave a cinnamon stick in it for an extended period of time? What would I have to take into consideration?

Hypothetically. I would love to continue the tradition, but I'm pretty confident the tradition was a little illegal. At least, in spirit.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi RexLaCroix - and welcome. Your post suggests that you think that simply leaving pressed apple juice outside to freeze will magically result in apple jack. Jacking a liquid by freezing and then collecting the first runnings of the thawing liquid depends on the fact that the liquid you froze was already fermented. Of course, you may know that, but you make no mention of either allowing the apple juice to ferment using indigenous yeast or by intentionally adding lab cultured yeast. So just to be very clear , you need alcohol to be present before you can concentrate it through freezing.

 

[BILTIT]

Its fine to leave a stick in the juice or cider. I put on in every jar of applejack i make.

 

[RexLaCroix]

Hi RexLaCroix - and welcome. Your post suggests that you think that simply leaving pressed apple juice outside to freeze will magically result in apple jack. Jacking a liquid by freezing and then collecting the first runnings of the thawing liquid depends on the fact that the liquid you froze was already fermented. Of course, you may know that...

I do. The state I live in is pretty easygoing with alcohol distribution and homebrewing, but one area they don't play around is liquor/distilling laws. So, I'm very much aware of what I'm not supposed to be doing, if you get my drift.

I assume that if it's stored in high enough abv, there shouldn't be any concerns of contamination from the stick, but I wasn't sure if it would break down after a while or make everything oily. Thanks all for the replies.