From Rotgut to Highclass

[Alchemist]

Did anybody see the Mythbusters where they took some horrible cheap vodka then ran it through a Britta water filter six times and, Voila, top shelf booze.

Obviously this could be very handy for the at home barkeep who doesn't want to poison thier guests with Skell vodka in brunch bloody mary's.

What else could a water filter be used for?

[Rob Simmon]

What else could a water filter be used for?

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You could turn a 21 year-old single malt into vodka. Did mythbusters do a double-blind test, by the way? How did they determine the filtered vodka was better?

[Friend of the Farmer]

there's better filtration technology out there than Brita (and generally filtration has been a great equity play over the past few years), best of which is used in the best vodka, but not so romantic as those lovely pot stills, is it?

is there really a vodka for the top shelf, or do we save that for what we truly prize? well there's an interesting forum topic...

Edited May 18, 2006 by Friend of the Farmer (log)

[eje]

[...]

What else could a water filter be used for?

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You could turn Wray & Nephew into Bacardi...

But, would your head hurt any less afterwards?

[tim]

Hi all,

The Brita Filter came from another source, funny and not very scientific. This is located in the thread on Making Lemoncello.

Go It Burns Brita Trick

Mythbusters actually rufuted the concept with a blind tasting.

The Myth of Filtering Cheap Vodka

Tim

[Kent Wang]

I did a blind tasting of unfiltered vs filtered well vodka. Results were split nearly 50/50 so I doubt it was effective.

[Mayhaw Man]

My, umm, friend, who used to do alot of distillation at night, in his barn, with the lights turned down low, and someone watching the road for revenooers, filtered straight out of the still through a commercial charcoal water filter (distillate was run through the worm into a container which was then pressured up with nitrogen-this provided the pressure to run through the filter-gravity worked, but took too long for the impatient (and not to mention temporarily sober and thirsty) stillmen. The difference between the filtered and the unfiltered product was pretty incredible.

On the other hand, once the first pass was made through the filter, the product did not seem to improve with subsequent filterings-quite the opposite, actually, as it seemed as if the flavor was being stripped (these were primarily rums made from molasses and fruit brandies) with each pass.

My, umm, friend, finally stopped anything but the first filtration as it seemed to do the trick.

He and his liver have since retired from the trade.

[slkinsey]

Plenty of spirits are charcoal filtered. It's common for vodka, of course. There are also plenty of white rums that are filtered to strip out the color. The "Lincoln County Process" used to make Tennesee Whiskey is filtering. In a way, aging spirits in charred barrels could be seen as a kind of filtering.