Neutral spirits are an integral base for certain alcoholic beverages. This includes vodka and gin. Neutral spirits are also known as neutral alcohol, ethyl alcohol, rectified spirits, and rectified alcohol. You can make these from stuff like grains, molasses, potatoes, and also other agricultural origins. The spirits are regarded as being neutral when it comes to their flavor and odor, but there are some that have a slight flavor. Neutral spirits are even employed in other industries like the food, non-alcoholic beverage, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and even perfume industry.
How neutral spirits are made
To make neutral spirits one needs to choose the raw material. Here various agricultural products can be used like grains, potato, sugarcane, sugar beet, grapes, etc. You can get organic products like organic cane alcohol. Sometimes choosing which organic material to employ is often determined according to what is present in the country or area.
It is important to get organic materials that have either starch or sugar. Fermentation is the next stage that occurs. Yeast gets added to sugar mixtures which break it down into alcohol as well as carbon dioxide.
After this distillation and rectification occur. The fermentation procedure gives a small concentration of alcohol. This is not sufficient to be utilized to make spirits. Distillation occurs to increase the alcohol concentration. This separates components within a liquid mixture via boiling and condensation.
Different types of neutral spirits
It is important to know that different quality grades are present for neutral spirits. It is the grade of the spirits which will determine what it will eventually be used for.
You can get extra-neutral alcohol or ENA. This is high distillate alcohol that does not have impurities. The ethanol grade is ethanol 96% ABV or more. It is used for beverage and even non-beverage use. The cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, paints, varnishes, and even cleaning products industry uses this.
Neutral alcohol that is made from grains is known as grain neutral spirits or GNS, neutral grain spirits or NGS or neutral grain alcohol. Some grains used to make this include corn, wheat, barley, as well as rye. GNS gives the base alcohol that is needed for distilling gin as well as vodka.
Potato-based neutral alcohol is made from potatoes and can be used to make vodka as well as aperitifs as it possesses a slightly creamy texture that allows it to be suitable as a base spirit.
Apart from this, you can get grape-neutral spirits and molasses-bases ENA also.
If you are looking for neutral spirits you need to know that only a limited number of brands of neutral spirits are present that you can easily buy off the market. It is important to find out who these are in the area that you are in so that you can buy from a reputed seller. This is if you want to get something that is legal and of good quality. You should find out details about the company to know if they are a valid one.
