Recipes
The recipes home distillers make most - sugar washes, corn whiskeys, rums, spiced rums, a classic gin and fruit liqueurs - described step by step, each with a calculator that scales it to your batch, in metric or US units, and estimates what you'll get.
All recipes
-
Neutral
Birdwatchers sugar wash
The best-known neutral wash of all: sugar, tomato paste and bread yeast, fermented warm to a clean base for vodka and gin.
Reflux, or pot (two runs) -
Whiskey
Uncle Jesse's Simple Sour Mash (UJSSM)
Cracked corn and sugar, re-fermented generation after generation with backset. Simple, cheap, and better with every batch.
Pot still -
Whiskey
Sweet feed whiskey
Molasses-coated livestock grain and sugar: an easy, smooth whiskey from a feed-store sack.
Pot still -
Neutral
All-Bran wash
Inverted sugar fed with All-Bran cereal: an almost foolproof wash that ferments dry in a week and clears on its own.
Pot or reflux -
Neutral
Wineo's plain ol' sugar wash
A plain sugar wash that relies on plenty of yeast rather than additives - very clean, and neutral even from a pot still.
Pot or reflux -
Neutral
Teddy's fast fermenting vodka (TFFV)
Wheat bran, sugar, DAP and baker's yeast, fermented dry in under four days for a clean vodka with a gentle wheat note.
Strip in a pot, spirit run in a reflux -
Rum
SBB's all-molasses rum
One hundred per cent molasses, hot dunder and fresh baker's yeast: a rum refined over more than fifty generations.
Pot or plated column -
Whiskey
NChooch's Carolina bourbon
An all-grain corn and malted-barley mash, cooked, converted and aged on new charred oak - a true bourbon-style whiskey.
Short column, about 80% -
Whiskey
Cornflakes whiskey
Breakfast cornflakes and sugar: a sweet, full corn whiskey for anyone who can't get good corn.
Pot still, strip and spirit run -
Rum
Pugi's rum (Pugirum)
Molasses, brown sugar and a boiled “yeast bomb”, fermented in a day and a half - with saved rum oils for a full, heavy rum.
Pot still: fast strips, gentle spirit run -
Rum
Buccaneer Bob's silver, gold and black rum
Blackstrap molasses, live dunder and a sugar feed, double pot-distilled - then finished silver, gold or black from one batch.
Pot still, strip and spirit run -
Gin
Odin's Easy Gin
Juniper, coriander and tangerine peel in neutral spirit, redistilled: the simplest good gin there is.
Pot still -
Liqueur
Berry Panty Dropper
Cranberry, raspberry and rosehip with white wine and neutral spirit: a ruby, dangerously easy liqueur at just under 29%.
-
Rum
Captain Morgan–style Spiced Gold
Brown-sugar rum steeped on toasted oak, cinnamon, ginger and cloves: a golden spiced rum in the Captain Morgan style.
-
Rum
Major Conund Rum
Six spices and fresh ginger in strong spirit, sweetened with caramelised sugar and molasses: a dark, peppery spiced rum.
-
Liqueur
Toffee Apple Liqueur
Cream caramels and crisp green apple in strong spirit, crowned with red wine: a fairground toffee apple in a glass, at about 34.5%.
Each recipe credits the distiller who created it, with a link to the original discussion. Fermenting a wash is legal in many places; distilling it often is not - check your local licensing first. Unfamiliar words are explained in the glossary, and the background - from inverting sugar to making the cuts - is in the guides.