hist-brewing: Cordials

[Henry Davis]

At 04:15 PM 7/1/03 -0400, Owen Hutchins wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "rory" <rory at forgottensea.org>
>To: <hist-brewing at pbm.com>
>Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 4:37 PM
>Subject: Fw: Re: hist-brewing: Cordials
>
> >Cold distillation (freezing off the excess water in order to
> > concentrate the remaining alcohol) is not illegal federally
>
>I have no idea where or who you are talking to, but this is another wrong
>statement; for the purposes of the CFR, distillation includes ANY process
>intended to increase the alcoholic content of a product, including
>fractional crystallization ("freeze-distilling"). It is regulated in exactly
>the same way.



Owen is quite right on this point. It doesn't matter what process you use, 
if it results in a higher concentration of alcohol you need a permit.

The lengths that the feds will go to is pretty amazing: a winery wanted to 
make alcohol free wine by reverse osmosis. The alcohol was going to go down 
the drain. Not so fast - the alcohol had to go into a bonded warehouse, the 
winery needed a distilling permit, the company got taxed. Then they could 
destroy the alcohol...

BTW, owning a still is fine so long as the capacity is less than one 
gallon. Bigger than that and you must have it registered.

Henry