How to make oak chips for moonshine. Moonshine recipe with oak chips

Oak chips, chips or chips are made from quality wood from several botanical varieties of century-old oak trees. It is used in the process of making homemade cognac, performs the function of an oak barrel, and replaces it when aging the drink. Let us consider below in detail how to properly prepare wood chips for cognac.

Special technology for producing oak chips

There is a special technology for producing oak chips:

1. On an industrial scale, the original wood is crushed to small sizes, approximately 10x8x5 mm.
2. The wood is split along the direction of the wood grain.
3. Dried by artificial and natural methods - natural drying is preferable for making alcohol.
4. Next, soak in clean cold water. You should change the water several times and add soda ash to the last portion: 1 tsp. by 5 liters - this is how excess tannins are removed from the wood chips.
5. Rinse under running water and pour boiling water for 2 hours. This step must be repeated until the water turns pale yellow.
6. Rinse again under running water and dry for 12 hours on a wire rack.
7. Then roast in the oven at 150 degrees for 3.5 hours, turning occasionally, until a light, pleasant vanilla aroma appears. The time may vary depending on the oven and the size of the wood chips.
8. To achieve darkening of the material, turn on the grill briefly at the end of frying.

If we are dealing with sawdust, we reduce the roasting time and carefully monitor the temperature and condition of the wood to prevent fire. That's the whole secret of how to properly prepare oak chips for cognac. A lot has been written and it looks labor-intensive, but by and large everything is simple and cost-effective. At the output we get a significant amount of wood chips, and its consumption is only 30 g per 10 liters of distillate. Properly made wood chips will have a positive effect on the quality of alcohol.

If the technology has not been violated, we will get a drink of a pale yellow color, close to the shade of straw.

How to prepare oak chips for cognac: calcination time

There is no single correct recipe for how long to keep wood chips in the oven; most likely you will find the ideal formula for yourself through experimentation. The baking time will ultimately affect not only the color, but also the taste of the finished product.

Possible options:

• lightly roasted, when the chips turn out to be straw-colored. We get the final product with a subtle vanilla aroma and light yellow color;
• medium roasting will give the cognac a light spicy aroma of almonds and a caramel shade;
• Deep roasting will provide a rich dark brown color and chocolate flavor.

Before you prepare oak chips for cognac, you need to understand how to use it.

Techniques for making homemade cognac

Cognac is a strong alcohol that is made from certain grape varieties by distilling dry white grape wine followed by aging in oak barrels. It has a soft, special taste and a complex aroma with notes of vanilla. Alcohol content – ​​40-55% vol.

Very often, domestically produced cognacs are far from their French counterparts in quality. Few producers follow all the technologies and age the drink in oak barrels for three years. Often they simply dilute the alcohol, add dyes and flavors, bottle it and sell it.

Therefore, producing homemade cognac is not such a stupid idea, the only problem is where to place the oak barrel in the apartment.

That is why many craftsmen have long tested this technique of making a strong drink at home, when the distillate is infused with oak chips. There are important points here that you should pay attention to: how to prepare oak chips for cognac, how to choose an alcohol-containing product, what to infuse.

To make cognac, you can use regular moonshine, but to get high-quality cognac, it is recommended to use brandy - a distillate of fruit wine, or chacha - grape moonshine.

The container for aging the drink can be either a bottle or various glass bottles.

We place our wood chips at the bottom of the container and fill it with alcohol-containing liquid. We stand for at least 30 days so that the wood chips give up all their contents, because during frying the tannins turn into vanillin and caramelized sugar, which will give the drink color and aroma. You already know how to prepare oak chips for cognac, but if you don’t want to do this, you can buy oak bark at the pharmacy.

In addition to wood chips or bark, you can add to the drink:

• dry black tea;
• caramelized sugar;
• black peppercorns;
• St. John's wort herb;
• dog-rose fruit.

After all the simple manipulations, the main thing is to be patient and wait until the color of the drink approaches the color of real cognac, you can start tasting it to understand what the taste is like.

We will disappoint you. Not so simple. If you follow the instructions above, with a 99% probability you will get “plintusovka” - a drink that has this name among moonshiners because of its dense, heavy taste and woody smell. It has nothing even close to homemade cognac.

To prepare an aromatic and tasty oak tincture using moonshine at home, you need to follow the infusion technology. It is simple and is divided into several stages. But first things first.

Preparing oak chips and moonshine before infusion

At the first stage, we need to prepare our ingredients for infusion: soak the wood chips thoroughly and clean the moonshine.

Soaking the wood chips is necessary to rid the wood of excess tannins. In small quantities they flavor and improve the drink, in large quantities they “tanner” it.

Wood chips come in different types of firing. The stronger the roasting, the stronger the aroma transferred to the drink. Therefore, if you want to get a soft taste and light aroma of the drink, use medium firing. For a richer flavor and darker color, highly fired wood chips are suitable.

You need to soak the wood chips for 24 hours, changing the water 4 times at approximately equal time intervals. But first we wash it under ordinary water to wash away dust and dirt. Change the water and start soaking. The first 3 times we soak in cold water, and the fourth time we pour boiling water over the wood chips and add baking soda. (for 40 g of wood chips - half a teaspoon.) Let the boiling water cool, then drain the water, rinse the sticks and dry them in any convenient way (in the sun, in the oven, in a frying pan). The chips are ready.

Much also depends on the distillate itself. Firstly, moonshine must be clean, without foreign impurities. Read about cleaning methods in our article “How to properly clean moonshine.” Secondly, the type of raw material from which the moonshine was obtained influences the production of the finished drink. For example, from sugar moonshine you will get a cognac drink, from fruit moonshine - an analogue of Calvados, and keeping the grain distillate on wood chips will give you whiskey. Corn moonshine will generally give a semblance of bourbon. It is clear that to obtain cognac tincture we will use sugar distillate.

Recipe for homemade cognac from moonshine on oak chips

The final stage is, in fact, the infusion itself. Let’s make a reservation right away: you won’t be able to get real cognac or bourbon from moonshine using oak chips. But it’s easy to make a cognac liqueur that is almost indistinguishable in taste and color.

To prepare cognac tincture we will need:

• Glass bottle with tight stopper
• Moonshine strength - 45-50%
• Soaked oak chips.

Mix the ingredients into bottles, seal them tightly and put them in a dark place. How long to infuse oak chips into moonshine is up to everyone to decide for themselves. On average, the aging period is 1-3 months. During aging, the tincture can be tasted, and only the manufacturer himself decides when the drink is ready to drink.

As for proportions, there are many opinions. But on average, approximately 10 g of oak chips per liter of moonshine is required. To achieve a cognac color, the tincture can be tinted with color.

If desired, the taste of the tincture can be varied with various spices and additives. This method can be used to prepare, for example, Latgalian cognac. This liqueur, invented in Latvia, completely replicates the taste of real cognac. At least that's what its creators say.

To prepare this tincture we will need:

• Moonshine with a strength of at least 50% - 3 l
• Oak chips - 2 tbsp. spoons
• Cloves - 3-4 pieces
• Nutmeg - 0.5 g
• Coriander - on the tip of a knife
• Sugar - 3 tbsp. spoons

Dissolve sugar in 100 g of moonshine to obtain syrup. Pour it into the rest of the moonshine, add the rest of the ingredients there. We cork the bottle and leave it to infuse in a dark place for 1 to 4 weeks. The degree of readiness can also be determined by taste.

In the article, we listed the basic steps for creating oak moonshine at home. Of course, there are many more recipes for moonshine infusions made with oak chips and various spices. You can’t list or remember all of them, and there are dozens, or even hundreds, of potential ingredients for creating tinctures. But this fact will give room for experimentation and inventing your own unique drink.

Oak moonshine on wood chips (video)

Moonshine aged on oak chips is the original homemade cognac, a rather mild alcoholic product, although its strength is quite high. The final product has a very beautiful amber hue, a sweetish aroma, a harmonious taste, and is easy to drink. The issue of making this alcoholic nectar is far from clear-cut. There are many original recipes, opinions, judgments.

Spices for infusing moonshine

The difference between the recipes lies in the choice of one technology or another and the amount of ingredients used. Considering the question of how to properly and originally infuse moonshine on oak chips, you can dwell on the most popular opinion on this issue, compiled on the basis of reviews and ratings. Typically, the following spices are added when making a drink:

• carnation;
• coriander;
• nutmeg;
• sugar.

However, gourmets can use ground cinnamon, honey, and chocolate. The use of dried tea leaves or burnt sugar for coloring is inappropriate, because oak has the ability to give off its unique color without the need for additional tinting. When interacting with alcohol, wood chips transform it, causing the colorless liquid to play with warm colors. In order for the flavor notes to sound in full, the maximum strength should be 42-50%. When the alcohol base is lowered, the range of taste of the final product is lost.

Secrets of how to properly infuse moonshine on oak chips (with video)

Oak chips can be purchased at specialized liquor stores or pharmacies; they should be rinsed for 2-3 minutes with cold drinking water, then filtered using a sieve. This procedure is repeated 4-5 times during the day. During this time, the wood is saturated with water and swells, so the taste of homemade cognac depends on the purity of the water. Next, the prepared material is dried in a well-ventilated room, after which dry firing occurs at a temperature of 170 - 200º C, in a pre-prepared oven. The degree of “roasting” determines the color of cognac, from wheat to the color of roasted coffee. Also, after this procedure, the drink acquires a caramel or floral aroma.

An important role for high-quality tincture of moonshine on prepared oak chips is the moonshine itself, its purification, achieved by distillation at least twice. This procedure allows you to rid the resulting alcohol of the pungent odor inherent in moonshine; additional purification reduces the content of fusel oils, which determine hangover syndrome.

The prepared base along with crushed spices should be added to the moonshine and everything should be mixed thoroughly. Then sugar is added, which should completely dissolve to the smallest grains. The resulting mixture is poured into vessels, sealed tightly, and transferred to a dark, warm place for at least two weeks. It is important to know how to properly infuse moonshine on oak chips to obtain a unique drink. The secret is constant stirring - 2-3 times a day, by shaking, which leads to a complete extraction of tonic substances from the wood.

After fourteen days, you can take out the tincture, strain through a filter, purifying the drink until the “tear” becomes transparent.

Watch the video on how to properly infuse moonshine on oak chips:

When conducting a tasting, you need to pay attention to the following points:

color – amber;

the smell is sweetish, subtle, refined.

The drink turns out to be quite strong, but it is easy to drink; tannins are slightly noticeable.

Note. Infusing moonshine on oak chips is a process of skillfully processing oak wood, purifying the alcoholic base, selecting spices, aging the drink and, ultimately, producing homemade cognac.

Many people know that cognac is infused in oak barrels to give the drink its famous color and taste. Homemade alcohol can also be refined using folk recipes. One of the popular ways to improve the quality of moonshine is to use oak chips. How is wood chips used for moonshine?

What not to do

Oak chips for moonshine

Why do they use wood when infusing alcohol? Wood acts as a natural purifier. Biochemical substances present in wood remove toxic impurities from alcohol, make it taste softer, and eliminate unpleasant odors.

Moonshine is infused for up to six months. How the drink turns out depends on individual wishes and the chosen recipe. What not to do:

• Oak chips for moonshine are pre-fired with your own hands. You need to be careful so that the wood does not char. Black pegs cannot be used. For your first experience, it is better to practice on a small amount of wood.
• No raw material is used. The wood chips must be completely dry and pre-burnt.
• Moonshine cannot be infused in a plastic container.
• All proportions specified in the recipe must be strictly observed.
• If an untested recipe is used, do not infuse a large amount of the drink. It’s better to try brewing some moonshine using a new recipe to see how the drink turns out.

Preparing oak chips

To make oak chips, you will need dry oak wood. Oak chip preparation process:

1. Make oak pegs of the required size. Standard peg dimensions used in industrial production are 10x5x3 mm. You can independently split the wood into pegs no more than 2 mm thick. Split wood in the direction of the grain.
2. The chipped wood chips need additional drying. You can lay them out outdoors in sunny weather, but this process will take a long time, especially if the weather is unstable. To make the process easier, use a fruit and mushroom dehydrator.
3. Once the pegs are completely dry, start processing them.

Recipe for making homemade cognac

For cognac made from moonshine at home, you will need oak chips. You can find ready-made material on sale, but moonshine infused on homemade pegs turns out much more aromatic.

Place the following ingredients in the prepared container:

• Fried pegs – 30 grams;
• Cloves – 4-5 buds;
• Coriander – 5-6 grains;
• Allspice – 4 peas;
• Vanilla, cumin - one pinch each.

You can make cognac using oak chips

Popular recipe for homemade cognac:

1. Pour the spices and pegs with moonshine, which has previously undergone two distillations. You will need 2 liters of alcohol.
2. Close the container tightly with a lid or stopper. Place in a darkened room.
3. Shake the contents of the container twice a week.
4. Homemade cognac needs to be infused for at least 2-3 weeks. To obtain a noble drink, you should wait 4-5 months.
5. Taste the resulting drink. If you are completely satisfied with it, filter your homemade cognac through cheesecloth or a special filter.

On a note! If you want to add a caramel flavor to your homemade cognac, add a little burnt sugar to the moonshine. After a week, filter the drink again.

How to Prepare Oak Chips

1. Soak the pegs in cold water for a day. The water changes at least three times during this time.
2. Dissolve a tablespoon of baking soda in water (5 liters). Soak the pegs for 6 hours in a soda solution.
3. Rinse the wood thoroughly under running water.
4. Fill the washed wood chips with water and leave to boil for 40-45 minutes.
5. Dry the pegs using a dryer or place them in the sun.
6. Fry dry pegs in a microwave or oven until chocolate brown.

Recipe for infusion with oak chips

You will need pegs and 45-degree moonshine. Fried wood chips are placed in a container with moonshine (20 grams of wood chips are needed for 1 liter of moonshine). It is preferable to use glass containers, but stainless steel will also work. The moonshine is infused for several months, after which the wood is removed and the liquid is filtered.

There are many recipes for infusing moonshine on oak pegs. You can try making homemade country cognac.

Ingredients

• Moonshine (3 liters), which has been distilled twice. The strength should be 45 degrees;
• Granulated sugar (2 tablespoons);
• Oak pegs (5-6 pieces);
• 13-16 rose hips;
• A few black peppercorns;
• 1 teaspoon of ground St. John's wort leaves.

For a milder taste, you can add a handful of white raisins, one pitted prune, and a vanilla pod.

Preparation

1. Make caramel syrup from sugar. The color of the syrup should be light golden.
2. Pour the bulk ingredients and wood chips into a glass container and fill with moonshine.
3. Add syrup, close the container with a lid.
4. After a week, remove the vanilla pod and prunes from the tincture.
5. Shake the contents constantly.
6. Infuse moonshine “In a rustic way” for 14-30 days.
7. Pass the finished drink through several layers of gauze.

Infusing moonshine on oak chips

Since moonshine is infused on oak pegs for a long time, you can place several containers at once using different recipes. As a result, you will get several types of homemade tincture. It is better to use moonshine made from grape raw materials: the drink will taste like cognac that has been infused in a charred oak barrel. You can also use sugar, cereals, berries, and fruits as raw materials. Particular attention should be paid to the quality of the original raw materials. The final taste will depend on what products were used.

Moonshine must go through all stages of distillation and filtration. Only then can it be infused using oak chips, since moonshine should not contain toxic substances: methanol, formaldehyde, fusel oils. Only a high-quality drink after infusion will taste like expensive cognac or brandy.

Almost no one uses oak barrels to infuse homemade alcohol. This is an expensive pleasure that requires special care. It is much easier to use oak chips, which will give the alcohol the necessary color and original taste. Wood gives the drink such beneficial substances as tannins, aromatic acids, and phenolic compounds. They add a piquant, incomparable taste to the drink.

If you want a liqueur with fruity notes, add raisins to the moonshine with oak chips. Using 3 liters of moonshine, you will need 20 grams of black or white raisins.

How to make homemade cognac from moonshine

From moonshine you can make a drink that will not be inferior in taste to real cognac. Since an oak barrel is expensive and takes up a lot of space, other folk recipes are used to make homemade cognac: walnut partitions, tea leaves, oak bark or wood chips.

There are three degrees of “roasting” of oak chips:

1. Light level, when the wood chips are fried in the oven or microwave until light golden brown. Moonshine using such wood chips will have a slight floral flavor.
2. Medium degree, at which the color of the moonshine will be rich brown, and the taste will have caramel notes.
3. Strong degree of “roasting”. The drink will take on a dark brown color and a chocolate flavor.

Double-purified alcohol with a strength of 45 degrees is poured into a glass bottle with oak chips. For 1 liter of drink, from 30 to 60 grams of oak chips are used. The container must be hermetically sealed with a stopper or lid. Homemade cognac is infused from several weeks to six months.

If you need to speed up the infusion process, you can use various spices. For one liter of drink you will need several peas of black allspice, a bud of cloves, and 2.5 grams of vanillin. Infuse homemade cognac for 2-3 weeks in a dry, dark place at a cool temperature.

Important! Such homemade cognac will not have many valuable properties, so it is advisable to wait a few months to obtain a higher quality product.

Each time you can find new individual proportions that will make homemade cognac unique in taste and color. Oak chips are the best way to rid alcohol of toxic impurities. You will receive a noble drink that is not inferior in taste to elite alcohol.

A good alternative to aging a strong home distillate in oak chips would be moonshine. People who know a lot about homemade alcoholic products imitate the procedures applicable to a barrel: soaking and roasting wood.

Although there is a simpler, less time-consuming way to give a homemade drink a touch of aristocracy - infuse oak bark, collected with your own hands or purchased at a pharmacy. Both methods are worth considering.

Note. Moonshine created on any basis is infused.

When using wood chips, you must first prepare it. In principle, you can buy ready-made chips of varying degrees of firing, but it is better to prepare them yourself.

Keep in mind that do not use oak from trees that grew in damp places (near swamps, near bodies of water) because it contains too many tannins that can oversaturate the alcohol and make it unsuitable for drinking. And certainly not ennobled.

Collecting oak wood

You won’t cut down a century-old tree for the sake of a couple of kilograms of wood chips. And they won’t pat you on the head for it. Therefore, many people choose a simple method - they cut down several branches that are 2-5 years old, free them from the bark, dry them for a couple of months and then use them.

However, if you can get old oak wood, take it. It is advisable that it be a log of known origin. For example, firewood from the nearest timber industry enterprise, where trees grow in environmentally friendly conditions, not treated with chemicals.

Prepare the wood chips as follows:

• clear the trunk of bark;
• cut into logs of 5-7 centimeters;
• chop wood chips from 0.5 to 2 cm.

Soaking and boiling

First of all, the wood chips need to be soaked and boiled.

1. Place the prepared small wood in a saucepan and fill with water. Maintain this way for a day, changing the water every 3-4 hours.
2. Next comes soda soaking. Take a teaspoon of baking soda for half a bucket of warm water. Pour this solution into the wood chips for 8 hours. Then rinse thoroughly several times.
3. Fill with clean water again, heat and boil for an hour after the water boils.
4. Place the boiled wood chips on a mesh tray, expose to a draft and let them dry for a day.

Burning

The prepared wood chips must also be burned. There are two ways:

1. Burn each chip over the fire of a gas burner until the middle part turns black, break it in half and throw it into a clean jar.
2. Fry all the material at the same time in the oven, spreading it on a baking sheet. In this case, you can achieve different degrees of frying. And fit the whole process into one loop:

• mild degree. Select a temperature of 180-190°C for a conventional oven or 170-180°C for a convection oven. Wait until the first smoke appears. This will take approximately 2 hours. After waiting for this degree of firing, using a potholder, remove a third of the chips. Distribute the rest evenly;
• average degree. You can increase the temperature by 10°C. The smell of burnt wood spreads, and the wood chips turn brown. Take out half of the remaining material;
• deep roast. Black areas appear on the wood chips and smoke is pouring out. Turn off the oven and take everything out, otherwise it will burn, and burnt wood is not good for us.

Lightly burnt wood will give the drink aged on it a hint of vanilla and a floral and fruity aroma.

Medium roasting will give a caramel-almond, slightly spicy aroma with a hint of coconut.

Deep roasting gives a chocolate and smoky flavor.

Advice. Try infusing small batches of homemade distillate on wood chips that have been fired differently, and decide for yourself what you like best.

Store the burnt wood chips in closed jars so that the aroma does not dissipate.

“Naturproduct” - a recipe for moonshine infused with bark

You can refine ordinary moonshine using oak bark. It is better to use the one that you yourself removed from the tree in early spring during sap flow, when there are no leaves yet.

Harvesting on an “industrial scale” is carried out in areas designated for logging from healthy trees. The so-called “mirror bark” is removed by ringing: the trunk is cut together with the splint layer into rings. The height of each ring is about 30 cm. Then a longitudinal incision is made and the bark is removed in a ring. Dry in the shade under awnings.

Carefully. Don't destroy trees for the sake of a momentary whim. Bark for your own needs should be removed from young growth, and not from the trunks of mature trees.

To make a tincture that is pleasant to the eye and taste, take only 3 liters of moonshine:

• Oak bark – 100 g.
• Sugar – 1/3 cup. Can be replaced with honey - 70 g by weight.

Grind the dried bark, then mix all the ingredients in a jar and let it brew in a cool place out of the light for ten days. Look at the color, take a sample. If the taste seems harsh, add another spoon or two of sugar or honey to soften it.

Drain the finished tincture, strain, pour into glass bottles and send to a cold place where the taste stabilizes. Five days is enough.

Methods for infusing distillate on oak bark from a pharmacy

Oak bark is not in short supply. It is only important to choose the right one. This lexicon is sold in crushed form, so make sure that there is no debris or strange inclusions in it. All you have to do is look through the contents of the box.

Make homemade cognac with herbs and spices. This drink actually resembles the famous alcohol. You can first “produce” a small batch, and if you like it, increase the quantity.

Recipe 1

Take:

• 1 l. purified moonshine 45-50° strength;
• 1 tbsp chopped bark;
• 1 teaspoon of sugar or honey for softness. You can do ;
• 2-3 cloves;
• 3 pieces of black pepper;
• 15 g each of dried St. John's wort and oregano;
• a little vanilla and coriander.

Mix all ingredients. Don't overdo the last two ingredients. Dip the tip of a dry knife into each one in vanilla, shake everything off and rinse in moonshine. Do the same with coriander.

Close the jar and take it to the basement for two weeks. Don’t be too lazy to shake the jar vigorously every 2 days. After the expiration date, taste the infusion. If you like it, filter it, let it rest in glass in the refrigerator (basement) for several days and serve. If the organoleptics are not satisfactory, let it sit for another week.

Recipe 2

Designed for 3 liters of moonshine. You will need:

• 50 g pharmaceutical oak bark;
• 50 g sugar or honey;
• 15 g of black tea, unflavored;
• zest of 0.5 lemon;
• 2-3 cloves;
• 5 peas of allspice;
• 1-2 bay leaves;
• a little bit of vanillin, nutmeg, coriander - at the very tip of the knife.

After mixing all the ingredients, leave the closed jar in the basement for 20 days. After filtering, pour into glass bottles and leave for a week to stabilize the taste.

Properties of moonshine aged on oak bark

Oak bark is a healing raw material, and it is not for nothing that it is sold in pharmacies. The tincture on it is filled with tannins and polysaccharides (pentosans). In moderate quantities it is beneficial for the body and acts as a medicine:

• useful for caries prevention. Treats dental diseases - periodontal disease, gingivitis, etc.;
• reduces pain in diseases of the digestive system such as gastritis, ulcers, intestinal diseases;
• helps cure inflammatory diseases of the genitourinary system (not to be confused with sexually transmitted diseases!);
• helps restore tissue from cuts and wounds, including deep ones.

It is not recommended to consume more than 100 ml of strong alcohol per day. Doses up to this amount are considered harmless and even therapeutic to some extent. Anything more is an unnecessary burden on the body, leading to exacerbation of chronic diseases and causing new ailments. And you shouldn’t forget about the occurrence of alcohol addiction. Therefore, what is beneficial in small quantities is poisonous in large quantities.

How to infuse homemade alcohol on wood chips?

Infuse moonshine on homemade oak chips for six months to a year. There is no definite recipe, but an approximate ratio: for 1 liter of distillate of 45-50° strength, take 30-60 grams of oak. Place the wood chips in a jar/bottle and fill it with homemade alcohol right up to the neck.

Roll up with a metal lid or close with a wooden stopper. Send it to the cellar for six months. Then take it out and try it. If the taste does not seem rich enough, re-cover the lid. This time leave it in the cellar for three months.

Strain the finished product, let it rest a little, then pour it for yourself and your friends. In addition to being pleasant to the eye, the taste also has the same properties as moonshine made from oak bark.

We do not rule out cases where there is only “average” moonshine in the house, but dear guests are expected soon, in front of whom you cannot lose face or have a special event and you urgently need to make a drink for which you will not be ashamed. Then you can improve the distillate quite quickly. Use the same ingredients as for bark, or try this recipe:

• 3 liters of moonshine with a strength of at least 45°;
• 150 g prepared wood chips;
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla sugar;
• 2-3 peas of allspice;
• 2 cloves;
• 2 tbsp sugar.

Mix everything except sugar in a jar, cover and refrigerate for 2 weeks. Shake several times during this period. After the time has passed, strain. The color will be weak, and the taste may remain harsh. Caramel color will help tint and soften. Boil the sugar in a frying pan until it turns dark brown and immediately add it to alcohol. Stir until melted.

Attention. The color will reduce the strength by a couple of degrees, so the initial distillate should not be weak.

And finally, I would like to warn against those mistakes that happen from the desire to make moonshine better than others. It can be damaged if:

• Adding too many herbs and spices at once.
• Use damp wood (bark).
• Allow too long exposure (especially for bark). You may end up with a liquid, popularly called baseboard, with a polish smell and an unpleasant taste.
• Pour the tincture into a plastic container. This way, not only can the taste be spoiled, but you can also be poisoned by chemical compounds, because alcohol reacts with plastic.
• Immediately prepare a large batch of tincture according to a recipe that has not been tested in practice.