Topic: How do you make Carrot Brandy

[caseylee]

has anyone got any recipes for this I can't find any any where

[PurpleHeather]

I did hear that wine made from vegetables including carrots was made and distilled (illegally) during WWII and was called carrot brandy.

If no recipe exists may be it was as horrible as it sounds.

[Baccy Man]

Make a carrot wine but keep the sugar in the recipe to a minimum, the dryer the wine the better the brandy. Run it through a still ideally a pot still but will work in a reflux if you remove the packing from the column before you start, age on oak, dilute to taste, bottle & drink.

[caseylee]

how do you make carrot wine please

[Baccy Man]

Here are 4 recipes for carrot wine which all work well.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques27.asp
http://www.ralpharama.co.uk/item.php?page=carrot%20wine
http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Carrot_wine
http://www.weekendbrewer.com/Wine%20recipe-file/Carrot%20Wine.htm

[cleo]

how do you make carrot wine please

It will make you go blind you know ;D

Seriously though-carrots do not make a drinkable wine however long it`s left.

In my `serious` days I did experiment with pea pods and it was drinkable eventually but stick to the basic ingredients. Root veg and wine do not mix apart from the use of parsnips and beetroots if blended with other stuff and given a very long time to mature

[pg]

I have to disagree Cleo about carrot wine not tasting any good how ever long its left.

Having tasted some carrot wine made by a fellow member of my local winemakers' circle that was around 8 years old (he rediscovered it when tidying up behind a filing cabinet!) I can say it was delicious. Very much like a dessert wine. Smooth and deeply satisfying.

The reason it was left was that as with all root wines (parsnip, mangolds etc) they taste pretty rough (wine books call this 'earthy', read yuk) for the first few years and then smooth out. The snag of course is keeping 'em that long. Even with good bottling/demijohn techniques it's hard to find a good constant temperature in our modern houses without cellars. So there's a danger that the wine might spoil before the decade is up.

[cleo]

Having tasted some carrot wine made by a fellow member of my local winemakers' circle that was around 8 years old

Fair enough-I will concede on that.

But 8 years old is the point and few leave it that long

[Melbourne12]

Many moons ago we made some "Beetroot Port".  The recipe said that it needed to be left 2 or 3 years, but by then it would be both a beautiful colour and would taste like a decent ruby port.

Making it stunk the house out. But we thought of the end result, and persuaded ourselves that it was worth it.

We made about 15 bottles IIRC.

Two years later we opened a bottle.  It was a lovely deep red, but tasted like alcoholic beetroot juice.  We made gravy with the rest of the bottle.  But we assured ourselves that we'd just been a bit impatient, and put the remaining bottles in the cellar.

A year on we opened another bottle.  The colour wasn't quite as good, but it still tasted like alcoholic beetroot juice.

Over the years, the colour continued to deteriorate as it oxidised, but it still tasted foul.

Some ten years after we'd made it, we were down to 11 bottles.  We opened another.  It now looked like dirty river water.  And the taste? Alcoholic beetroot juice.

We took the remainder outside to pour down the drain.  A neighbour spotted us, and we told the story.  "Oh, don't waste it", she begged, "I'll have it."

She was only too welcome.  And apparently she and her OH drank it with great relish.

No accounting for taste!

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Although we never tried it, you can make brandy legally by "freeze distilling".  Put your wine into an ice cube tray and let it start to freeze.  The water will freeze first.  Strain the ice crystals off, and you'll be left with a higher alcohol portion.  Repeat two or three times and you'll get something like a brandy strength.  (Don't let it freeze solid, or else your brandy will be trapped in the ice.)

And this method avoids the danger of methyl alcohol from heat distillation.

[cleo]

There speaks one who knows ;D I never did get my Judges exams cos I stopped brewing to concentrate on a marriage-but I was considered worthy enough to comment as an assistant-the rubbish some folks put up in local circles has to be(or best not) tasted to believe.

I will concede the carrots can produce a drinkable wine(if left long enough-and I have yet to taste one))-it`s the myth about Carrot Whiskey I dispute.

[Baccy Man]

==================================================

Although we never tried it, you can make brandy legally by "freeze distilling".  Put your wine into an ice cube tray and let it start to freeze.  The water will freeze first.  Strain the ice crystals off, and you'll be left with a higher alcohol portion.  Repeat two or three times and you'll get something like a brandy strength.  (Don't let it freeze solid, or else your brandy will be trapped in the ice.)

And this method avoids the danger of methyl alcohol from heat distillation.

Fractional freezing is not specifically mentioned as being illegal but I believe you may have been misled as to how safe it is to drink. Freeze distilled spirits accumulate fusel alcohols and are often referred to as rotgut because they can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, clinical depression, or coma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeze_distillation

Using a pot, reflux or fractionating still is a much safer option as you can separate and dispose of the fusels. There is nothing illegal about owning or using a still in the UK you are simply not allowed to use it to distil alcohol, if however your essential oil or distilled water recipe goes horribly wrong and you end up with vodka, or brandy, or whisky, or rum etc... it would be a shame to waste it.

If anyone wants information on how to build and use a still to produce essential oils & various related subjects I suggest you read through the information at these sites:
http://www.homedistiller.org
http://www.brewhaus.com/forums/

[Melbourne12]

....  Freeze distilled spirits accumulate fusel alcohols and are often referred to as rotgut because they can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, clinical depression, or coma.
....

Or just buy a bottle of cheap Calvados next time you go to France, and get all the symptoms without any of the trouble.  ;D

[Baccy Man]

Why go all the way to France, Lidl & Aldi stock loads of reasonably priced rotgut.

This thread got me thinking so I bought a crate of plums off the market today to make some śliwowica lavender oil.