Expert's Corner: Pot bellied or pot stilled?

[Capn Jimbo]

What's the "Expert's Corner"?

This is where the commercial and faux commercial wannabees end up. These are just ordinary putzes who just happen to possess ego and time enough to put up a "rum website". They are almost never - well, never actually - qualified as real authorities. What they're really after is to gain attention, to get lots of freebies and/or to promote their rum business. In time, a bunch of monkeys come to regard this webmasterbaiter as an "expert", and here's the key - this individual now feels obligated to act the part.

They have painted themselves into the "Expert's Corner". This week we hear again from one of the greats - Wolfboy, a true master of the bar stool. As always he starts with a commercial blurb from the distiller, in this case a family made gin from Vancouver...

"Victoria Gin is hand crafted using a German copper pot wood-fired still. The company producing the spirit (Victoria Spirits) is located on Vancouver Island, British Colombia, and it is produced in a small batch process from a neutral grain spirit which has been enhanced with ten natural and wild-gathered botanicals..."

(Emphasis added)

Our pot bellied "expert" once again can't tell the difference between a pot and a column still. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and to a pot-bellied reviewer, I guess everything looks like a pot (no doubt used to cook the sausage for his vodka tastings). I know this will bore most of you, but for visiting monkeys, a pot still is nothing more or less than a big squat pot, with a single exit called the "lyne arm", which conducts the vapors to a cooling device where it condenses into the captured alcohol. Here's a pot still from another post:


(Pot still to thumper to worm condenser)

Even this pot has been modified with a simple thumper in between the pot and the worm condenser. For example, most whiskies are made with the pot alone. Now, here is a true pot still:





And here are a couple of Carls:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

As you can see, lots of bells, whistles, and a spaghetti of tubing and gauges, and very similar to the small column used by Victoria to make their gin.

Like so many micro distillers, this lovely family has spent good money to get what is may be a Carl or more likely, a Carl lookalike copper still. As you will see, a Carl (or lookalike) are small, expensive, short column stills with a column of at least five or more refining "plates" that allow the production of high alcohol white spirits. What looks like a pot really acts like a boiler to feed the column.

While such a still can be run as a quasi-pot (by not running all the plates) this is only done for brown spirits, and no matter what, it is run as a deballed column, whose output will be notably different than the heavy spirits produced by classic pot stills. No matter...

In this case this column is being run as a column, using multiple plates to produce what in this case is an 86% output. Another difference from classic gin, is how the family soaks the botanicals in grain neutral spirit (maybe not even theirs), filters and then redistills the botannical-soaked GNS using most if not all of the column plates.

This too differs from real pot still gin, which does not soak the botanicals, but places them in a "gin head" which is on top of the pot, and through which the distilled alcohol vapors pass through and pick up the flavors and aromatics in what is a more expensive, and more subtle way. Still (pun intended), we remain big fans of all micro distillers and their fledgling efforts. A wonderful video of their process is (here).
Highly recommended watching.


As for our pot-bellied friend, I'd stick to holding forth at your local pub, the later the better. An oh - pick a sturdy stool...

[da'rum]

I think it's all in the wording there Jimbo,

Victoria Gin is hand crafted using a German copper pot wood-fired still

So it still could be a column still but with a copper boiler, that copper boiler as pictured in the Carl is Jacketed so it can be heated with water or steam which would/could be heated externally (another room) by a wood fired boiler.

That Carl is made with versatility in mind, A separate column with by-passable plates for varying degrees of distillation and flavour control.The column itself can be completely disregarded and the still ran as a pot still albeit with an elongated head that would produce some passive reflux. It has a jacketed boiler which is on one hand safer that direct heating a wash especially if there is high alcohols being returned to the boiler but also to negate burning/scorching of botanicals used to make gin or absinthe or schnapps or whatever.

I bet I could make some very nice rum with that Carl.

Wood fired= Big deal! doesn't make one iota's difference
Copper pot= perhaps an attempt to deceive the reader into assuming pot-still, not just pot.

Those couple of things seem to be a subtle attemp into creating a minds eye picture of an old world Pot still with a fire underneath it creating old world gin.

A waste of time I think, it would better if they said we have a cool still and a unique approach to making our gin, we reckon it's the ducks nuts ..give it a try!.


*******
Capn's Log: Right you are! The attempt is anything but subtle, and misrepresentative as you note into directly implying that this is a pot-stilled gin of the really classic sort. Not at all. It's no more "handmade" than running even a huge column still, the "pot" - as you said - is nothing but a boiler, and the botanicals are of the soaked variety, again done in the fashion of most column stilled gins. They never claim to even make the GNS from which it is made. As far as they go is to add "spring water", which may or may not be an advantage.

Still (there I go again) I like small family run businesses, and would absolutely try what is really just their first attempt at making spirits. As you well know, not all "artisans" make good product; indeed, a lot of them don't. The real point is the perversity of the pot-bellied promoters of this globe...

[da'rum]

This example highlights the silly norm. Not only with spirits but other products as well. Creating a bullshit story to sell something that would more than likely sell equal quantities if the seller told the truth in a enthusiastic way. A truth can be just as appealing as the lie.

We should expect the product is made to law and regulation ie rum must be from Molasses or Cane juice and distilled without additives. If additives are added after then they should be noted on the products label etc etc. BUT there is absolutely no need to say the rum, gin, whiskey or whatever was made by holy pirate virgin monks in 1453 using pure Arctic water filtered by dodo feathers and distilled upon the first tall ship to bump into the Galapagos isles.

These stories could easily be replaced by 'we distil our rum using traditional methods and modern equipment (whether it be column or pot as both can produce great rum) to bring you a fantastic rum.'

Any thing that severely guilds the lily, attempts deception or outright lies¹ shows a distinct lack of faith in the product and as consumers we should avoid at all costs, if not merely on moral grounds.

Or maybe they attempt to use smoke and mirrors because they have a distinct lack of faith in the buyer. Or in worst case , they know their product is mediocre and have contempt for the customer² in which case their product should be also undoubtedly avoided at all costs.

That's why I lament the fact that there isn't a larger member base in this forum and forums of the like with members that encourage others to find the truth behind the Advert and take a stand for legislation that forces distillers to state the absolute truth.

¹Diageo
²Diageo

PS that second still is a thing of beauty!

[Capn Jimbo]

It gets worser and worser...


Again da'Rum, you are right on the bullseye. The family's video - which is fun to watch - belies their statement "Hand made in small batches with a copper pot still on Vancouver Island." An honest statement might better be "small batch gin made with the well-respected Carl still of Germany". It's really hard to call something "handmade" unless you grow your own wheat - crush, grind and ferment it yourself - and make three or four repeated batch runs using a simple and classic pot still. Now that is handmade. As for Victoria..

You decide.

The Carl is typically purchased by micro-distilleries who may have the dream of making good whiskey, but must survive the aging period by starting with, and making white spirits, especially vodka but occasionally gin. Then to call it "handmade" and "premium" as did Victoria. The Carl is really just another column still, but small in size and is designed for batching and limited output. The plates can be removed, or limited so as to imitate a pot still, but not nearly as well. This still always uses the column.

As far as postings go, I agree that garnering truly intelligent posters is a trial, but reading is another matter. The Rum Project gets a quarter million hits a month, many thousands of unique visitors each day so please know that your posts are being read by many thousands of rum readers.

I also know that certain other webmasters are frequent flyers here, judging from my IP logs. If you wish to speak to the monkeys, the Preacher, or the mounties - and their rum butt buddies - this is a pretty good place to post. This is particularly true in that these faux-commercial sites rarely tolerate much dissension, or anything that would disturb their conveyor belt of freebies, and sold out rumfest tables.

Carry on...

[JaRiMi]

The rum and spirits blogger world is well and alive with people who have had minimal or no exposure to the actual manufacturing of spirits. As a result, anything made (partly) of copper becomes a copper pot still.

In the case of the blogger, the mistake can be accounted to lack of knowledge. In the case of the maker of the spirit, the mistake is no mistake - it is a lie. Lord knows there are many lies made by many a distiller company.