A testament to human ingenuity

[lollardfish]

I want to come up with a comprehensive list of all the things that people have turned into alcohol. Please help me. What I want are the things that are actually fermented/distilled, as opposed to the flavors people dump in.

- Any grain: Beer (Barley is key!), Whiskey (Corn, Rye, Wheat), distilled grain alcohols (Vodka, Gin, Sool), sometimes fermented directly from bread (kvass from Russian black bread).
- Potatoes: Vodka, rarely Beer
- Mare's Milk: Kumis
- Sugar Cane Juice: Rum, Raki
- Grapes: Wine (of all types, including fortified and grappa and bubbly and ouzo and such).
- Pears: Perry
- Apples: Cider, Calvados
- Rice: Sake, Rice wine (rarely other kinds of distilled liquors)
- Agave: Tequila
- Artichoke: Cynar - A wierd Venetian liquor like Campari (with added wine)
- Assorted Veggies: Campari and Aperol (with added wine).
- Honey: Mead
- Plums: Slivovitz, or plum brandy (Romanian)
- Elderberries: Elderberry Wine
- Various Fruits: Various gross fruit wines made by Boon's
- Dandelion: Dandelion Wine
- Fig: Boukha, sometimes Raki
- Lilacs: Lilac Wine
- Cassava: Caxiri. Cauim. Pajuaru.
- Dates: Thibarine, Mahia
- Pomegranites: Sipak
- Birch Sap: Kvass
- Palm Sap: Arrack, Palm Wine
- Coconut Milk: Arrack
- Yucca Sap: Sotol
- Cactus fruit: Colonche
- Pineapple: Chica
- Maple Sap: Specialty vodka.

I'll add more as they occur to me and y'all direct me. I am mostly organizing my office today as I get set to move to the next chapter.

Comments

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Right. It's out!

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I think wormwood is just a flavoring (with added fun pharmaceuticals).

Does lassi ever get alcoholic?

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I thought the wormwood was a functional part of the alcoholic process, though I didn't read the science part of the recent wormwood article in the new yorker all that carefully.

[facilisfool.livejournal.com]

Nope, no fermenting/distilling in the processing of wormwood. It adds the nifty psychedelic aspect to the drink, but it's mixed with alcohol (traditionally vodka) and all sorts of other things to help kill the truly repugnant taste of the wormwood =)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Modified, thanks. I really need to find a link to that absinthe article. but now must dash.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

oooh, that's a wonderful photo in your icon.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I borrowed it from rosefox.

[jadiana.livejournal.com]

Figs, dates and Pomegranates.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

What are the drinks called?

[jadiana.livejournal.com]

Boukha is the one for figs, Thibarine and Mahia for dates. And Grenadine is Pomegranate syrup, fyi. But Sipak is one name for the alcohol.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Boukha sounds good!

Is Grenadine actually alcoholic? I thought it was just syrup.

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

Grand Marnier is made with orange peels. Also, "white lightening" production in prison used to be from oranges, although nowadays prisoners aren't allowed to possess fruit, I believe.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Flavored from orange peels, or actually fruit veggie matter?

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. Try this http://www.drinksmixer.com/desc532.html

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Pretty sure it's cognac (which is a fortified wine) with orange flavor.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Nope, cognac is a double-distilled eau-de-vie--bad wine distilled twice and aged for at least two years.

I've been to Cognac. Smells like heaven.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Right. Cognac flavored with orange = Grand Marnier?

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Sounds right.

[zinzinzinnia.livejournal.com]

Anything with sugar/carbohydrates can be fermented into alcohol.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Too vague! Examples please. Names of drinks that people actually drink! :)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I was going to tell him that.

B

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I'm building a teaching resource. "Anything" is useless to me. :) I need details so I can have an impressive list.

[creidylad.livejournal.com]

elderberries and dandelions both make wine.

Also...

[creidylad.livejournal.com]

From pears people also make pear cider which I think is different from perry, and apples can be used to make applejack, which is just gross.

It turns out people really do make lilac wine from lilacs.

Nearly all fruits are used to make wines, come to think of it. I've seen/had peach wine, apple wine and plum wine (as opposed to the brandy, which is derived from plum wine, I guess.)

Per the wikipedia, raki is sometimes made from the fig as well as other fruits as well as from molasses.

Tej is also made from honey.

Re: Also...

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

"apples can be used to make applejack, which is just gross."

-I've heard it said that the reason Johnny Appleseed was important, wasn't for the fruit, but for the cider both alcoholic and non.

Re: Also...

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

As near as I can find Perry = Pear Cider, although some pear cider is just pear juice added to apple cider.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Calvados is made from apples, isn't it?

K.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Added to the apple list.

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

Of course there's the various "beers" made by so-called "primitive" cultures or indigenous peoples. Is there an anthropologist in the house? I can't remember any examples of what they are made from. (I have visions of an old National Geographic special where the natives spit into the mixture before leaving it to ferment.)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Right. I know of various "beers" from around the world, but all come from one sort of grain or another.

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

What I'm thinking of are tribes in tropical areas -so maybe fruit-based and simply fermented for a few days in containers like gourds or simple clay pots. They are probably better described as the ancestors to what we would call beer.

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

Speaking of ingenuity, my father was on a submarine tender in WWII supplying and repairing subs in the So. Pacific. The had a water purification plant on board for supplying distilled water for the batteried on the subs. Dad said the crew operating it could run 5 gallons of medical alcohol (ethanol not denatured, since it was war time) through it and make it drinkable without the officers finding out.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

"Sugar" for rum should probably read "cane juice" or molasses" instead.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

Browsing around I find that cassava/manioc has been made into three different alcoholic beverages: cauim (still extant), pajuaru, and caxiri (which was also drunk unfermented)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Neat!

Sool

[madtruk.livejournal.com]

Moon Bae "Sool" is a distilled alcohol made from millet and sorghum using a special method that has been handed down from generation to generation. It's smooth taste improves with age and it is said to be hangover-free.

I also found a variation using Horse's Milk, but couldn't determine if it was a flavoring or in the distillation process itself.

I'm not sure why I started looking at Korean alcohol, but what the hey.

Re: Sool

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Neat! This is a fun list to assemble.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

Russians drink kvass, which is fermented from black bread. Mildly alcoholic. It was sold on street corner kisoks back in the USSR. Wikipedia says that birch sap was used. I hadn't heard that before.

Sake is fermented from rice.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I wonder if "kvass" just means booze somehow. Some medieval travellers I've seen on the steps drink fermented mare's milk called by the same name.

I'm totally into tree sap booze. Do they make alcoholic maple syrup?

I've got rice/sake.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard of maple booze. Maybe we should try it.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

this page agrees that Kvas means "fermented beverage." It also has a history of eastern European terms for alcohol.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

The mares' milk alcohol is Kumis.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Ok. I'm not convinced entirely. But that article does have a link to This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrack) so I've got to add palm and coconut.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

one ought never implicitly trust wikipedia, it's true.

add pineapple to your list and check out this page:
http://www.mexicanmercados.com/food/drinkssi.htm

also, maple sap vodka: http://www.vermontspirits.com/press_wsj.html

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

sotol: in Jalisco and Nayarit, a distilled drink using fermented sap of the desert yucca called sotol, of the genus Dasylirion. Yucca gets added.

colonche: in central Mexico, made from the fermentation of macerated cactus fruit and sugar: Cactus gets added

I may just have to say, "Fruits." Then list some examples.

The maple sap vodka looks like maple sap added to vodka, rather than fermented maple sap itself?

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

some of them do seem to be maple flavored, but not all: "Duncan's Spirits Inc., started by a former anthropologist in St. Johnsbury, Vt., who studied Southeast Asian hill tribes, makes one vodka from 100% maple sap and another from milk sugar."

oddly, I can find no reference to alcohol intentionally made from citrus, instead of flavored by it.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Nice. It's on the list. Thanks so much for digging for me.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

what's a weekend for! :)