kscans

Chapter 138 - What was Born from a Barrel 2. Brandy

After overcoming such hardships, he brought back a total of five barrels of wine. He wanted to devote some of it to bottle aging, but unfortunately, the glass bottles were not yet ready. He had secured enough silica sand, the raw material, so he could make them if he wanted to, but there was something else he wanted to do first.

"Now that I have wine, making brandy by distilling it is the standard, isn't it."

Putting aside the quip that those weren't the words of a child, it was indeed a familiar development in light novels and the like, and distillation seemed likely to help raise his alchemy level. After all, Yuri's alchemy was Alchemy (Strange), with the strange suffix attached. He could not neglect his efforts to make it grow properly. No, to confess, more than any of that, Yuri wanted to drink brandy. Wine and cider were not bad, but it was a man's nature to want a strong, hard-hitting drink. He understood that his current body was in its early teens, but when he reached drinking age, wouldn't he want to drink well-aged brandy? If so, there was no time to waste.

With such a torrent of logical development, the production of brandy became a set policy in Yuri's mind.

Incidentally, there was a reason why he didn't go down the path of distilling beer into whiskey. What was made in this world was not beer but ale, and its flavor, which used a lot of herbs instead of hops, didn't quite suit Yuri's palate. He had no idea what kind of flavor it would have if he distilled such a thing. He didn't have enough of his own barley to spare for brewing ingredients, from Yuri's perspective, and if he were to buy new barley, it would probably arouse the suspicion of Old Man Audel and Adon. And so, Yuri gave up on whiskey, at least for the time being, and ran with the production of brandy from wine.

For the distillation of wine, he had already looked up the structure of a still. Following that, he used Blacksmithing and Alchemy, he didn't care if a suffix was attached or increased, to make a still out of copper. The copper was something he had purchased in Laurenzen. After all, the moment he saw the wine, the path of distilling it into brandy was decided, so the purchase of copper to make the still was also automatically decided. He was aware that he was a novice at alcohol production. So he wouldn't make a big one all at once, but planned to repeat trial productions with a slightly smaller still. He would start with a relatively simple pot still.

"The boiling point of alcohol is lower than water, so to collect the alcohol using that difference... I don't have a thermometer, so it's probably better not to boil it, right."

The description in Appraisal said something about Cognac being heated over a direct flame, but it seemed difficult for a beginner who didn't even know how to control the heat to maintain a temperature below 100 degrees. He could only see a scene where the raw material wine boiled, resulting in a thin distillate mixed with steam. It seemed easier to use a water bath and adjust the heat while watching the water temperature, but he realized that when he added more water to the water bath, the temperature might fluctuate. In that case, should he just use fire magic? However, while fire magic was suited for generating high temperatures, it was not suited for uses like keeping a constant temperature. Yuri, who was skilled in controlling his magic power, might be able to do it, but it was a different story when it came to continuing that all night long.

"Hmm... if I keep the water temperature below 100 degrees, it shouldn't boil, so I don't have to worry about the amount of water decreasing. In that case, I shouldn't need to add more water... so I'll go with the water bath method after all."

Once the heating method was decided, he built a stove to match it and set up the newly made still. It was the very definition of a last-minute job, but Yuri himself was completely serious.

"Now, I'll put the wine I bought into the still, and..."

This was the wine he had gone to the trouble of carefully selecting and buying as a raw material for brandy. That being said, it wasn't a high-end product. He had simply chosen and bought a type with strong acidity and low sugar content. He had chosen it according to the teachings of Appraisal-sensei, but since he didn't know if the wine-making methods here were the same as on Earth, this was honestly a bit of a gamble. He had gotten a strange look for choosing something that didn't seem like it would be a good sweetener and also didn't seem like it would be a delicious wine, but he had insisted that he would use it for an acidic condiment and bought it. However, not only Dona, but also Old Man Audel and Adon had looked at him with suspicious eyes. It was no wonder, since there were proper wine vinegars for acidity, yet he was going to the trouble of buying a wine with strong acidity. Well, in any case, he had managed to purchase the raw material wine, so he decided to call it good.

He poured the wine he had obtained through such hardship into the still. He lit the fire in the stove, and as he adjusted the heat to prevent the water bath pot from boiling, distillate eventually began to drip from the end of the still.

"Oh, it's coming out, it's coming out. Let's see... ah, the first part that comes out has a strong off-flavor and can't be drunk. ...Ah, but it's also sometimes added during the next distillation... I wonder if it promotes some kind of reaction? ...I'll set it aside, just in case."

He set aside what was apparently called the heads, and then received the distillate that dripped out next in a separate beaker. It was a colorless, transparent liquid, but the scent of alcohol that wafted from it was unmistakably that of a distilled spirit. The amber color of brandy was given to it during the barrel aging process, so at this point, it had no color. Around the point where the feel of the distillate changed, he changed the beaker again. This was the part called the tails, and it seemed it also couldn't be used for brandy. The part excluding the heads and tails, called the heart, seemed to be used for brandy.

"Let's see... with a pot still, a single distillation can't completely remove the off-flavor components, so I need to distill the distillate again. And then, I'll put that into a barrel to age... I'll keep a little of the first distillate too. It should still be drinkable."

Although it was not yet complete, this was the moment that a thing called brandy was born in this country.

Let it be a little tedious, but let's explain the alcohol situation in this world here.

First, on his past life's Earth, the technology of distillation itself was known since before the Common Era. It is said that an Islamic alchemist performed the distillation of alcohol in the twelfth century, and Yuri had thought that there would be something like distilled spirits in this world as well... but Yuri had forgotten that the technology of distillation itself was originally an experimental technique for alchemy. On the other hand, what is central to alchemy here in the world of Forea is magic power and magic. Since the extraction of substances and the like is often done using magic power, the technology of chemical experiments is rather underdeveloped in some areas. The distillation of alcohol is one such example. Although the technology of distillation itself was known, the idea of applying it, a technique of alchemy, to alcohol production was difficult to come by. The situation in other countries across the sea is unknown, but at least here in the Rivairein Kingdom where Yuri is, distilled spirits are not widespread.

Next is the concept of aging. Distilled spirits aside, brewed alcohols with a generally low alcohol content are not suitable for long-term storage in wooden barrels. As for wine, a certain amount of aging does proceed in the barrel, but even so, long-term preservation is not possible. If it were stored in glass bottles, long-term aging would be possible, but in this world, glass bottles are still expensive, and they are not used for something as trivial as storing alcohol.

In conclusion, if Yuri wanted to get his hands on the kind of alcohol he desired, he had no choice but to make it himself... and conversely, the kind of alcohol Yuri made could not be obtained elsewhere.

Yuri had not yet noticed that fact.