The schnapps distiller

At a glance

• Place: Ungersheim, Alsace
• Season: October to March
• First run: 40 to 65°; final: 45 to 60°
• Keeping: up to fifty years in wax-sealed bottles

Fruit and fermentation

Alsatians distil mainly small fruits, raspberries, blackberries and blackcurrants, but also pears, plums and grape marc; in October it is the season of mirabelles. Only sound, ripe fruit is used, crushed for pip fruit or chopped for stone fruit. Fermentation in wooden casks lasts one month to six weeks, until carbon dioxide stops.

The still

In the first copper pot, heated with wood, the fruit boils and smells of caramel and jam. The vapor passes through the swan neck and cools in the second vessel, in contact with cold water, where it becomes alcohol, flowing into a copper bucket. The first jet, the petite goutte, runs at 40 to 65°; after an hour it falls to 20 to 25°.

The second pass

The spirit from three or four batches is heated again to concentrate it and remove fatty acids. "There is nothing better than the second pass," says Schermesser; continuous stills distil in one go but the schnaps does not taste the same. After six months in a demijohn, aroma and taste find their harmony.

The law and the tradition

Distillation is strictly regulated. Traveling distillers, allowed to distil for fruit growers, were becoming rare, and most production had gone to industrial distilleries. Yet, he noted, since the strength of brandies was lowered, people were beginning to distil again.