Before there's a record in any system, there's a real, physical craft. Here's what actually happens on the production floor to turn water, grain, sugar, and botanicals into gin, whisky, rum, and vodka.
The fastest spirit to produce — flavor comes almost entirely from botanicals, not time.
Gin doesn't start from scratch the way whisky or rum does — it begins with a already-distilled, flavorless base spirit (usually grain-derived), essentially a blank canvas ready to take on flavor.
Every gin's character comes from its botanical recipe. Juniper berries are the one non-negotiable ingredient — by law, it has to taste predominantly of juniper to be called gin — alongside a distiller's own mix of coriander seed, angelica root, citrus peel, and countless other aromatics.
The botanicals are steeped in the neutral spirit, sometimes for hours, sometimes overnight, allowing their essential oils and aromatic compounds to infuse into the liquid before it ever touches a still.
The infused spirit is then distilled again. As it heats, the aromatic compounds vaporize and travel up through the still, condensing back into a liquid that now carries the full character of the botanical recipe.
Once distillation finishes, the distiller measures the alcohol strength (ABV) and the total volume produced. UK law requires gin to be at least 37.5% ABV — anything weaker simply isn't legally allowed to be called gin.
The distilled spirit is diluted with water down to its final bottling strength, quality-checked, and bottled — ready for sale almost immediately, unlike aged spirits.
Behind the scenes: every one of these steps — the botanical recipe, the maceration and distillation times, the ABV and yield readings — is captured as a digital record in AlchoGin, along with which supplier delivery each botanical came from. See Features for how that traceability works.
The longest journey of any spirit — grain to glass can take a decade or more.
Milled grain (malted barley is classic, sometimes blended with other grains) is mixed with hot water. The heat activates enzymes in the malt that convert the grain's starches into fermentable sugars, producing a sweet liquid called wort.
Yeast is added to the cooled wort (now called wash) and left to ferment, typically for a couple of days. The yeast consumes the sugars and produces alcohol along with the flavor compounds that will carry through to the final spirit. Distillers track the drop in sugar density (gravity) from start to finish to see how completely the fermentation converted.
The fermented wash is distilled, often twice. As the still runs, the distiller separates the output into different fractions, or "cuts": the foreshots (the very first, undrinkable run, high in harsh compounds), the heads, the hearts (the clean, desirable spirit that will become whisky), and the feints (the tail end, often redistilled). Knowing exactly where to "cut" between these is one of a distiller's most important skills.
The retained "hearts" spirit is diluted to a fill strength and filled into wooden casks — often ex-bourbon or ex-sherry barrels, whose previous contents leave behind flavor and color that the whisky will slowly absorb.
The filled casks rest in a warehouse for years, sometimes decades. The wood breathes with the seasons, drawing spirit in and out of the wood grain, mellowing harsh notes and adding color and complexity. Casks may be moved between warehouse locations for optimal ageing conditions.
Every year, a small percentage of the volume in each cask evaporates through the wood — a loss so consistent and poetic that distillers call it "the angels' share." Distilleries track this loss (and the accompanying change in strength) periodically for as long as the cask matures.
When the whisky has matured to the desired character, it's taken from the cask, typically diluted to bottling strength, and bottled — the culmination of a process that began years earlier with nothing more than grain and water.
Behind the scenes: AlchoGin tracks every one of these stages as its own digital record — mash, fermentation, distillation cuts, cask filling, warehouse movements, and angels' share readings — all linked by a shared batch and cask identity so a bottle's entire multi-year history can be traced end to end. See Features for details.
Born from sugar, matured in the same casks the world's finest whisky calls home.
Rum starts not from grain but from molasses, a thick, sugar-rich byproduct of refining sugarcane. Each delivery is measured for its Brix — a reading of sugar concentration — because the sweeter the molasses, the more alcohol it can ultimately yield.
Yeast is added to the molasses (often diluted with water first) and left to ferment for one to several days, converting the sugars into alcohol. As with any fermentation, the distiller tracks the temperature and the change in gravity to judge how the fermentation is progressing.
The fermented liquid is distilled to separate out and concentrate the alcohol, producing a clear new-make spirit — the same fundamental process as whisky or gin distillation, but starting from a completely different raw material.
The new spirit is filled into oak barrels — frequently the very same ex-bourbon casks used for whisky — and left to mature. Time in the barrel is what turns a clear, sharp spirit into the amber, rounded character most people associate with rum.
Once matured to the desired age and character, the rum is taken from the barrel and bottled, ready for sale.
Behind the scenes: AlchoGin logs the originating molasses intake (including its Brix reading), the fermentation, and the barrel ageing record — all linked back to the same intake so you can trace a matured rum cask to the exact delivery of molasses it came from. See Features for details.
The purist's spirit — success is measured by what's not there.
Vodka can be distilled from almost any fermentable base — grain and potatoes are the most traditional — which is first fermented much like the base spirit for gin or whisky.
Unlike whisky's pot-still cuts, vodka is typically run through a multi-plate column still, sometimes several times, deliberately pushing the alcohol strength very high and stripping away the flavor compounds ("congeners") that give other spirits their character. The distiller records the still's configuration and the resulting strength for each run.
The high-strength distillate is passed through a filtration medium — very often activated carbon — to remove any last trace impurities. This is what gives well-made vodka its signature clean, neutral smoothness. Distillers record the filter batch used, the flow rate, and run a clarity check to confirm the batch has passed.
The filtered spirit is diluted down to bottling strength with water and bottled — like gin, vodka requires no ageing, so it can go from still to shelf in a matter of days.
Behind the scenes: AlchoGin records each distillation run (column settings, strength, yield) and its linked filtration record (filter batch, flow rate, and the clarity pass/fail check) — so every batch has a documented, auditable quality trail. See Features for details.
Every stage above maps directly to a tracked, approval-gated form in the platform.
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