Flavour of Spirit Drinks: Raw Materials, Fermentation, Distillation, and Ageing

Abstract

Spirit drinks are food products and represent a major outlet for the agricultural industry all over the world. This outlet is largely the result of the flavour quality and reputation these products have acquired on the world market over hundreds of years; various national and international legal decrees, standards, and specifications lay down rules on the definition, description, and presentation of the different categories of spirit drinks [1-4] which can be separated in two main categories, distilled spirits and liqueurs. Distilled spirits have alcoholic strengths between 30 and 50% v/v and are produced by distillation from fermented agricultural products containing carbohydrates; their flavour is not only characterised by aroma compounds originating from the raw material and the alcoholic fermentation, but also from distillation, storage, and ageing. Liqueurs are spirits with a minimum ethanol content of 15% v/v and a sugar content of 100 g L^-1; they are produced by flavouring ethanol of agricultural origin, distillates of agricultural origin, or one or more spirit drinks with natural plant materials such as herbs, fruits, fruit juice, cream, chocolate, steam-distilled essential oils, distilled spirit drinks, or natural or artificial flavouring extracts.