After the first experience with the barrel, it was home bourbon, I realized that there was even more desire to move towards aged drinks. I came across three buckets of apples of different varieties for nothing, and I immediately decided to make Calvados. In this article, I will provide a detailed homemade calvados recipe.

Ingredients:

• Apples - 3 buckets, 2 sweet varieties and one very fragrant and neutral sweetness bucket,
• Sugar - 3 kg.,
• Water - 12 l.,
• Wine yeast for white wines - EC 1118 10g.

Making apple mash

First, the apples need to be washed well so that wild yeast does not interfere with the work of cultured ones. Since there were not many apples, I decided that I would clean them by hand from rot and core, so that there would be a pure apple mass. Then he crushed the apples with a construction mixer into a fine-grained porridge.

To obtain a higher yield of the product, I added invert syrup with the expectation that wine yeast will better process sugar in this form. Then I mixed apple porridge, water, syrup. He poured the yeast with warm water at a rate of 1 to 10, let it stand for 15 minutes and poured it into the fermentation tank.

Fermentation of apple mash

Fermentation lasted 2 weeks at a temperature of 20-22 C, every day the mash mixed well several times, fermentation took place without a water seal. The readiness of the mash was determined by the bitterness in taste, clarification of the top layer. Since I do not have a steam generator, I filtered the mash from the apple pulp with cheesecloth, squeezed it well.

Distillation of apple mash

I did a double distillation, the first was the selection of raw alcohol to the lowest possible degree in the stream. In total, I received 7 liters. with a strength of 34%. The second is fractional, the head fractions took about 7-10% of the AC, and also constantly monitored the smell of the distillate. For the barrel, I specially grabbed a little aromatic tail fractions, finished the selection by 65%, and ended up with 2.5 liters. with a strength of 88%.

Diluting and pouring into a barrel

Before pouring the apple distillate into the barrel, I poured cherry-raspberry wine for 2 weeks, the barrel itself has already worked on bourbon and grain whiskey. The distillate was diluted up to 65%, and sent for aging at room conditions. Oak barrel, volume 5 liters.

Draining from a barrel

During the aging, I constantly tasted a little, after 2.5 months I decided to drain and dilute to a drinking degree - 40-42%, left it in the glass to rest for another month.

Homemade calvados has a bright woody orange color, plays in the sun. The aroma is rich apple with a honey-floral tint, we can distinguish a woody smell. The apple component is also clearly felt on the taste, it is drunk softly, in the aftertaste there is a note of light woody bitterness. Separately, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the recipes for homemade bourbon and grain whiskey.

Below is a video clip with a detailed recipe for making homemade Calvados. The video contains all the stages from making apple mash to tasting from the author of the blog.

Calvados is the hallmark of the region of the same name in the province of Lower Normandy. This brandy is made by distilling apple or pear cider.

The drink dates back to the 15th century, and is now protected by the “Rules of Origin” (French AOC). This means that only the distillate produced in several departments of Lower Normandy can be called Calvados.

The origin of the drink is also allowed from Orne, Manche, Air, Loire, Sarthe and Mayenne. And the highest quality brandy is produced only in the eastern part of the Calvados department. Such a drink is not cheap - from five to eight thousand rubles per bottle. Even if the original manufacturing technology is followed to the smallest detail, the resulting drink cannot bear the proud name "Calvados". It can only be called "apple brandy". Calvados, like cognac and armagnac, undergoes a long aging in barrels. But this does not mean at all that it is impossible to cook it at home.

And in this article we will describe all the phases of the artisanal process. Believe me, the resulting drink will be only slightly inferior to the branded Calvados.

Original technological process

In Lower Normandy, only 48 varieties of fruits are used for apple calvados. As a rule, only small but ripe fruits are selected.

Manufacturers carefully observe the proportions. A good brandy should be 70 percent bittersweet apples, 20 percent sour apples, and another 10 percent bitter ones. That is, dessert varieties are not suitable for a drink. Apples should have a rich aroma and increased tannin, which translates into a slightly bitter taste. After squeezing the juice, it is turned into cider. Then, when the wort has passed the fermentation process, it is subjected to double distillation. But this is still not Calvados.

The alcohols are skillfully mixed and enclosed in oak barrels, where they mature for at least two years. During this time, the distillate gains an amber color, the aroma of haze and wood, and notes of dried fruits, caramel and spices appear in the taste.

Brandy preparation phases

There are not so many recipes for apple calvados. And so that we do not get a Slavic tincture or German schnapps, we must strive to adhere to the original technology.

The whole process can be divided into phases:

1. Selection of apples and obtaining juice.
2. Making cider - a low-alcohol drink.
3. Straining.
4. Distillation. Obtaining a distillate.
5. Excerpt.
6. Filtration.

Of course, it is difficult to follow the manufacturer's technology completely. For example, you can replace it with glass jars with wood chips. But if you want the drink to be aromatic, strong and tasty, you should apply effort and patience.

Homemade apple calvados recipe. Step one

We carefully select the apples. Often not very good fruits are taken for juice: broken, with stains of spoilage. But in this case, you need to be a perfectionist and strive for the ideal. We observe the proportions. Seventy percent of apples should be moderately sweet and very juicy.

Select autumn (September-October) to start cooking the Calvados. Then the apples reach their full ripeness.

Remember to add another 20 percent sour varieties and 10% bitter ones. This does not mean that you can take unripe apples that have not collected sugars. Unripe fruit has no aroma, but it plays a primary role in the drink. Not my apples. After all, we need to preserve the wild yeast that lives on the peel. We simply cut out the core with seeds from the apples and crush the juice.

Any method will do, including modern ones. The juicer will allow you to have a nearly pulp-free product in just a few minutes. If the liquid comes out too cloudy, filter it.

Step two. Cider making

Pour the juice into a glass container. We put it in a dark place, but not in the cellar. You need room temperature. After a day - and even earlier - abundant foam will appear on the surface of the liquid. As the recipe for Calvados dictates, it must be removed from the apple juice. This can be done in two ways. The first way is with a spoon. The foam is quite dense and the work progresses easily at first. But it is difficult to remove the remains of the foam. Therefore, the second method is preferable - through a tube. So you will get rid of not only foam, but also of the sediment that formed the pulp.

Pour the liquid into another tank and leave it under the water seal. If you do not have a professional installation (glass curving bulb), you can get out of the situation in one of two ways. We seal the jar of juice with an airtight lid. In it we make a small hole into which we push a rubber tube. Its edge should not touch the juice. But we lower the other end of the tube into a vessel with water. Thus, air does not have the opportunity to enter the fermentation tank, but the resulting gases can leave the tank.

There is a simpler way. Just pull a medical glove over the neck of the can, piercing the rubber on one of your fingers with a needle. Leave the juice to ferment in a dark place, but at room temperature.

Step three. Straining apple wine

After a while, you will see how the fermentation process began in a can of juice. As winemakers note, it's important that you don't end up with apple cider vinegar right away.

But you don't need to add any sugars and even more so yeast to the wort. Also, you should not resort to the help of vodka and alcohol if you want to make a real homemade apple juice calvados at home.

Wild yeast on the peel of sour fruit should do its job and start the wine fermentation process. The rapid release of bubbles (or an inflated glove like a balloon) in a month will be replaced by another phase. It will be a quiet ripening. How do you know if the cider is ready? Winemakers are advised to look closely at the jar under the water seal. If bubbles do not appear for several days, and the liquid has cleared and a precipitate has formed, then the cider is ready. If you have a glove instead of a water seal, then it should completely fall off. Open the container and carefully filter the cider. Experts say that if this is not done, the hard parts will burn during distillation and spoil the taste of the drink. It is enough to pass the cider through several layers of cheesecloth.

Step four. Primary distillation

To get apple calvados at home, you need a moonshine still. It would also be nice to have an alcohol meter to determine the degree of the drink.

At this stage in the preparation of Calvados, the main thing is not to be greedy. Winemakers claim that 14 liters of cider (or 20 kilograms of apples) are needed to prepare one liter of distillate. Where does so much liquid go? To obtain a quality brandy, the cider is distilled twice.

In the primary distillation process (in Lower Normandy copper "alambics" of the Charentes type are used for this), all the liquid is collected. At the exit we have the so-called raw alcohol with a strength of 25-30 degrees. Unlike the pleasant-tasting cider, it cannot be drunk.

Step five and most important

In most distilleries in Normandy, apple calvados is double distilled. This second distillation process is very critical. Professionals say it has three factions. If we compare moonshine with a green snake, then we will call these parts “head”, “body” and “tail”.

First, a liquid is released from the apparatus, which is saturated with toxic fusel oils. This is the "head" that must be mercilessly drained. The strength of this fuselage is small, but you cannot drink it. "Heads" can be from 5 to 12 percent of all mash that has passed the first stage of distillation. Next comes the "body". It is this that will become the future apple calvados. We carefully collect alcohol with a strength of 80-90 degrees drop by drop. The tail crawls out last. The strength of the liquid drops. When it reaches below 30 degrees, cut off this "tail". It can be collected in a separate container and stored for new cider.

Sixth step. Replacement for oak barrels

As a result of our efforts, apple moonshine, devoid of color and with a rather boring bouquet, turned out. Calvados is a noble drink that needs to be given time to mature. It is difficult to imagine in a city apartment an oak barrel in which brandy matures. Let's do without it. But we still need an oak tree. And not sawdust, bark or shavings. They contain a lot of tannins, due to which the drink will come out bitter.

We need wood, which we will carefully divide into pegs 15 centimeters long and 1 cm in diameter. For a three-liter jar, a cut of a trunk 25-30 centimeters in diameter will be enough. Scald the pegs with boiling water. We leave for 10 minutes under the lid. We drain the water, pour in a new one, this time cold. Soak for 20 minutes. We dry the pegs.

Excerpt

We carry out all manipulations with oak wood ahead of time, so that by the end of the secondary distillation it is ready for use. We do everything like this.

1. First, dilute the resulting alcohol with distilled water to achieve a strength of 40-42 degrees.

2. Pour this liquid into a jar. Place oak pegs on the bottom. We seal the jar tightly. You can even roll it up with an iron lid.

3. Then we leave the container alone in a dark place for six months or even a year. Nothing bad will happen if you uncork your apple calvados after a few years.

4. Before using the drink, strain it through several layers of gauze.

An easier recipe for calvados (apple vodka) at home

The above method of making brandy is complicated. In addition, something can go wrong at any of the phases of the technological process - then the juice will turn sour into vinegar, or the fermentation process will not start.

It is much easier to resort to the second recipe. The result is not quite a Calvados, but also a strong apple distillate that tastes good.

1. Two kilograms of apples, peel and core, cut into small cubes.

2. Put these pieces in a jar, pour a bag of vanilla sugar (10 g). Pour a liter of quality vodka.

3. We seal the jar tightly and set the liquid to infuse at room temperature in a dark place for 15 days.

4. We take out the apples, squeeze them out.

5. Filter the liquid through a cotton-gauze filter.

6. Cook syrup from 200 grams of sugar and 150 milliliters of water. Let it cool to room temperature.

7. Pour in apple vodka. Stir and bottle the tincture.

An even faster way

The traditional recipe involves making Calvados from apple juice. But you can simplify your task by passing 15 kilograms of fruit through a meat grinder. From the resulting puree, you need to separate 300 milliliters of wort. Add two tablespoons of sugar and dry yeast there.

While the frothy cap is forming, let's boil the syrup. To do this, dissolve three kilograms of sugar in half a liter of water and bring the mixture to a boil. Let cool the syrup and pour in the wort with yeast. Place the entire puréed mass in a large container (up to 50 liters). Fill with mash and place under a water seal. Let's wait until the liquid ferments, then the foam will disappear, and the sweetness in the taste will go away. This may take two weeks. Next, we filter the liquid, removing the cake. We send for distillation a drink that can be called homemade calvados. To make it more reminiscent of a noble Norman brandy, winemakers recommend insisting it on oak pegs for about six months.

Strong alcoholic drink Calvados, prepared on the basis of fruit raw materials - from apples or pears. it a kind of French brandy, which is obtained by distillation (a drink with a strength of up to 6 degrees).

Homeland and only original manufacturer of Calvados - Normandy... This is a locality located in the northwest of France. The recipe for apple calvados at home exists, but it is somewhat complex.

Calvados belongs to the elite species. Earlier (at the beginning of the last century), it enjoyed great popularity, which mainly spread to Normandy, where it was the local national drink. French law regulated its production by only a few departments, one of which it was named after.

Interesting! Cooking calvados should include only those fruits that are grown in the same area in the process: apples and pears.

Based on these rules, the drink is an apple or apple-pear brandy with a strength of at least 40 degrees, but reaching 60. The legislation also provides for the presence of three possible types of Calvados:

1. AOC calvados.
2. Calvados Domfrontais.
3. Calvados Pays d'Auge especially appreciated by amateurs.

All types are tied to the territories of manufacture and have specific technological characteristics.

How is it made?

Making calvados is a complex and time-consuming technology consisting of the following steps:

1. Selection of fruits from the local harvest, belonging to special varieties. These are small apples with aroma, divided according to taste for 4 groups:

• bitter - 10%;
• sour - 20%;
• bitter-sour-sweet;
• sweet.

The last two groups make up 70% of the raw materials. Sometimes pears are added, and the ratio changes. So in Calvados Domfrontais, according to the standard, these fruits can be half.

2. From this mixture, cider is made in 5 or 6 weeks. But in some unique recipes, it ferments for 6 months, giving the fortress up to 7 degrees.

4. The distillate (in French - eaux-de-vie) is kept in, fired inside, with thick walls and porous wood.

5. The product is transferred to "old" barrels, where alcohol-containing liquid of different ages (at least 2 years) is mixed in the desired ratio.

How to do it at home?

Homemade calvados is made from moonshine in the following steps:

1. We get low-alcohol cider ( light house wine) by fermenting apple juice.
2. Produce from cider (distillate).
3. Withstand it in an oak barrel.
4. Filter.

Only apples with the best quality are used as ingredients. According to various recipes, cider is added honey, spices (vanilla) sometimes ferment it together with cake... Simple and complex technologies are improved, supplemented by inclusion in the fermentation process yeast or raisins(50 g each).

Homemade apple calvados is informally called " apple cognac". In the production process use single and double distillation recipes... Home-brewed beverages can also vary in this dimension. The first technology is carried out continuously in a vertical still.

The second option is more accessible: in a moonshine still. In this case, the alcohol-containing liquid is divided into fractions. The first portions are thrown away, as they contain harmful ones.

When preparing calvados with your own hands, it is better to use barrels for aging. Before use, a new container is steamed, soaked and washed with 20% alcohol.

Note! After the first two years of storage, apple calvados has an almost infinite shelf life.

Classic recipe

How to make calvados at home so that the drink retains the apple aroma and resembles the real one? First of all you need to mix apple varieties, taking 4 parts of sweet and bitter, adding 2 parts of sour fruits. We prepare in the following steps:

• Squeeze the juice without pulp, hold it for a day under normal (up to 25 degrees C) temperature conditions.
• Remove the foam, pour the liquid into the fermentation room. Put on a throat or medical glove with a hole in the finger made by a needle.
• Move bottle to dark fermentation room and keep at room temperature until cider is obtained.
• When the contents become lighter, a sediment appears, and the bubbles stop appearing (or the glove deflates), the process can be considered complete. It is necessary to drain and filter the drink from the sediment.
• Get a distillate from cider with. Measure the strength with an alcohol meter.
• batch with water to a strength of 20 degrees, we distill again. Allocate a 40-degree liquid, draining its first 12 percent, as an unusable, harmful part (industrial alcohol).
• Get a moonshine of 70 or 80 degrees, place it in an oak barrel or in a glass container with the addition of oak stakes (read:).
• Dilute the liquid to 40 degrees with water, pour it into jars, seal it tightly, wait for ripening in the dark and cool for 6 months or a year.
• Filter, bottle and seal.

How to cook quickly?

How to prepare Calvados more easily and quickly? It is possible to prepare a beverage similar to vodka... In fact, this is an apple tincture up to 35 degrees in strong alcohol. The simplified method of making calvados at home is not very complicated. It is recommended to include only high-quality apple and vodka in the manufacturing process. Composition:

• 2 kg of apples;
• 1 liter ;
• 200 g sugar;
• 10 g vanilla sugar;
• 150 ml of water.

The cooking steps are as follows:

1. Cut clean apples into coreless cubes, put them in a glass jar with vanilla sugar and stir.
2. Fill with vodka, tightly close the lid and keep for 2 weeks in the dark at room temperature.
3. We filter the contents and squeeze through cheesecloth. Cook the syrup for 5 minutes without foam, pour it into the tincture in a chilled form.
4. Mix, bottle and keep cool for up to 3 years.

How to drink Calvados?

The rules for drinking Calvados are depending on the variety and aging... At the age of 4 years, it is used as an aperitif, an addition to a feast.

More aged varieties are drunk to improve digestion after meals ( digestive), using special glasses with a thick bottom, filling them by 1/3. First, the fruity aroma is inhaled and savoring the taste, and then tasted.

The strength of the drink can reach up to 50 degrees, some add Calvados to the cocktail, combining it with tonic and other ingredients. Traditionally used as a snack cheese, bread, pastries, desserts and fruits... And also the taste is quite suitable for meat dishes.

So, let's figure out what it is, what it is made of and how it is prepared. Calvados is an alcoholic beverage native to Normandy, France. It should be noted right away that only an original drink produced in a given region can be called calvados, and the reason here is not only in the registered trademark, but also in specially bred local varieties of apples (which in turn are the main ingredient in the production of the drink), the use of which is clearly regulated by the manufacturer. All other variations of this drink should be named apple brandy or (depending on the quality of the final product), but in this article we will omit these conventions. Sometimes the drink is also referred to as Apple vodka but this is not entirely true.

In this article, we will take a closer look at the production of Calvados, namely the 2 most popular ways of making a drink at home: complex - apple Calvados, as close as possible in taste to the original and simplified - apple tincture, in general terms resembling the original.

It is impossible to make real calvados at home. This alcohol, like many others, has a strict geographic reference. Therefore, the recipe for making a homemade drink will be as close to the canon as possible. The result is slightly excellent, but no less tasty.

Calvados cooking technology is divided into several stages:

1. Selection of raw materials.
2. Making cider.
3. Distillation.
4. Excerpt.
5. Filtration.

At the first stage, apples are picked. For calvados, different types are suitable, differing in taste.

• Sweet.
• Sour.
• Bitter.

Better to use sweet fruits. They make up the majority of all raw materials. Other species are added to them in a small percentage. In some recipes, pears are added to make the drink softer and more aromatic.

Since you can cook Calvados from apple moonshine, at the second stage for the next distillation... The drink obtained by fermenting apples is called cider. Knowing how to make mash from fruits, production will not seem difficult. The prepared wort is activated by yeast and infused in a dark place at room temperature until fully cooked.

In order to make moonshine for Calvados at home, you will need distillation cube... Pre-prepared cider is poured into it and apple vodka is obtained by one or two distillations.

A true Norman drink acquires its color and aroma after aging in oak barrel... Since this is not always possible at home, we make Calvados in glass containers with the addition of oak chips or stakes.

The final stage - filtration... With its help, the drink will be cleared of the formed sediment. After that, bottle the Calvados, seal them and it will be ready to eat.

The classic recipe for apple calvados at home

Traditional Calvados is prepared at home according to the recipe as close as possible to the original drink. For cooking, you only need apples... Their number is chosen depending on the capabilities and the desired final volume.

First of all, you need to get from the fruits juice... It is wrung out so that the pulp remains as little as possible. After receiving it, it must be defended for one day without putting it in the refrigerator. Apple juice will be used to prepare cider for further distillation. After the time has elapsed, the foam is removed from the drink, and it is poured into the fermentation vessel without sediment. The neck is closed with a prepared water seal, and the cider is sent to fermentation in a dark, warm place. It is desirable to maintain an average temperature of 23 degrees.

It will be ready in about a week. The end of the process is determined by the cessation of gas formation. Pour the cider into the alembic without lifting the fermentation sediment that appears at the bottom. For this, you can use a sieve or cheesecloth.

During the first distillation, all the resulting distillate... It is drained until the amount of alcohol drops to 30 degrees. In this apple moonshine, you need to add water to 20 degrees and re-distill. This time, the distillate needs to be divided into factions... The first 10 to 15 percent are poured out or used only for technical needs. The second part is assembled until the moment when the strength of the jet begins to decrease to 40 degrees.

The classic recipe for apple calvados necessarily includes the use of oak barrels... The resulting moonshine is always colorless. When aged in a barrel, the drink acquires its traditional woody-golden color and aroma. But at home, this is not always possible. Therefore, as a rule, they use oak chips... It is added to the holding container.

The wood must be prepared in advance. It is divided into small pieces, poured with boiling water for 10 - 15 minutes, after which it is soaked in cool water twice as long. Raw wood chips are dried and only then placed in bottles. They are filled with moonshine, tightly corked and aged from six months to a year in a cool place.

The finished drink is filtered through cheesecloth folded in several layers with cotton wool or thick cloth. The peeled apple brandy is ready to eat and can be stored for a very long time.

Simplified homemade recipe

Since you can make calvados using a simple homemade recipe, you can only exclude the distillation process, you will need to add a vodka component. Calvados, whose recipe contains foreign strong alcohol, is obtained not from apple mash, but from alcohol tincture... For cooking, you need to cut two kilograms of apples, put them in a fermentation container and add 10 grams of sugar. Pour a liter of vodka to the fruit and leave under a closed lid for a couple of weeks.

After the time has elapsed, filter the infusion. Mix 200 grams of sugar with a glass of water and prepare the syrup. The resulting sweet mixture is cooled and added to the apple tincture. The finished product is bottled and stored in the refrigerator.

Improving taste

Cooking Calvados is a creative process. You can improve the Calvados with your own hands by changing the shades of its taste and aroma. To do this, it is enough to add flavorings after distillation. They can be berries, dried fruits, nuts. The made drink must be infused until the taste and aroma of the additives are fully transferred to the drink.

Other popular recipes

Calvados at home can be prepared according to various recipes that differ from the original. The taste will also be slightly different, but it will not make it worse. The most commonly used recipes are:

• Apple and pear.
• By leaps and bounds.
• On raisins.
• On apples and cider.
• On moonshine.

All these methods have their own characteristics, in connection with which the finished drinks will differ. None of them will be a real Calvados, but each of the recipes has the right to exist and be tested.

Recipe for Calvados from apples and pears on moonshine

Making calvados at home is already much easier than distilling apple cider. And the pears present in this recipe add even more sweetness and softness to the drink. For cooking you need:

• Pears - 400 grams.
• Sweet apples - 500 grams.
• Bitter apples - 200 grams.
• Sour apples - 300 grams.
• Moonshine - 1 liter.
• Water - 200 milliliters.
• Granulated sugar - 100 grams.
• Vanilla sugar - 100 grams.

The fruit is washed, dried, peeled and cored and cut into cubes. First, apples, then pears are placed in the prepared container. Sprinkle the slices with vanilla sugar and pour over. The mixture is covered with a cloth or gauze from dirt and dust and removed to a dark place. The ambient temperature should be at 23 - 25 degrees. Fermentation time is three weeks.

The contents of the jar are constantly shaken and mixed. After the time has elapsed, the drink is filtered and cooked over low heat. At the same time, syrup is prepared from sugar and water and added to fruits and moonshine. You need to cook for about half an hour. The resulting product is cooled and bottled.

Recipe for Calvados from apples with yeast

Adding yeast to the composition of the drink changes the taste, but noticeably speeds up the fermentation process. For cooking you need:

• Apples of different varieties - 7 kilograms.
• Water - 5 liters.
• Granulated sugar - 1 kilogram.
• Yeast - 25 grams.

Sugar is mixed with one liter of water until completely dissolved. The apples are peeled and twisted in a meat grinder. The resulting mass is mixed with sugar syrup. Yeast are divorced with a small amount of warm water to activate them and infused for half an hour. Mix all the ingredients in a container prepared for fermentation and close the resulting mass water seal.

Braga will be infused for a week and a half with constant stirring. The resulting liquid is distilled twice through a cube and poured into bottles with oak chips, and, if possible, into barrels. The exposure time before use is at least six months.

Raisin Calvados Recipe

Making homemade calvados with raisins improves on previous recipes and improves the flavor and aroma of the drink. Cider prepared for subsequent distillation can be used as a standalone drink. The recipe will require:

• Sweet and sour apples - 3 kilograms.
• Raisins - 50 grams.
• Water - half a liter.
• Sugar - 600 grams.

Apples need to be grated or twisted with a meat grinder. The resulting mass is placed in a jar in layers, which are sprinkled with sugar and raisins. After that, the jar is filled with warm water. The container is closed with a water seal and placed in a dark room for a week and a half for fermentation.

The resulting cider is filtered from the sediment, distilled through a cube and bottled with oak stakes. After infusion, the drink is ready for tasting.

How to drink Calvados properly

The aging of this alcoholic drink directly affects the rules of drinking. Calvados, which is less than four years old, is used as an aperitif. Older drinks improve digestion and are therefore consumed after a meal. Calvados is served in thick-bottomed glasses or snifters like cognac and brandy. The drink is poured into 1/3 of the container. First you need to inhale the aroma, then take a small slow sip, taste the Calvados and just drink.

In order to appreciate this traditional Norman drink, you must definitely try the original Calvados produced in this region. But for frequent use, you can cook it at home. The resulting apple brandy will be significantly cheaper than in the store. But at the same time, not one properly prepared homemade alcoholic drink cannot be called bad. Homemade Calvados is sure to be very rich and aromatic.

The history of apple calvados goes back a long way. Back in the 16th century, a French nobleman from Normandy achieved recognition of the national status of the drink. It got its name from the area where production originated. Defined as a strong alcoholic beverage made through a double distillation of apple cider, Calvados is essentially the official apple moonshine. The French are famous for their eccentricity of turning homemade products into a symbol of the country. So apple moonshine became a protected trademark, along with cognac and champagne, the name of which is allowed to be used by producers of a certain area.

Mash preparation

Brague for making moonshine is apple or apple-pear cider. To make it, you need aromatic apples, usually a mixture of different varieties is selected. The amount of sweet and bittersweet fruits should prevail over sour ones. When pears are added, according to tradition, no more than 30%, they are equated with sour raw materials. The quantitative proportions of the choice of apples differ from one producer to another; about 50 varieties of apples are also officially recommended. At home, you need to proceed from the raw materials available nearby. In Russia, apple and pear trees are much more common in vineyards, they are very diverse and fertile, so there will be no problems in the selection of source material for apple or mixed mash.

The collected fruits are washed and placed in a warm place to ripen and gain sweetness. The source of fermentation in apple mash is natural fruit sugar and store additions are usually not required. You need to make juice from the fruits and pour it into the prepared containers. In the old days, wooden vats with rotating millstones were used, modern manufacturers crush apple juice on the latest food equipment. At manufacturing plants, raw materials are crushed and squeezed out with a special press. At home, use a household juicer or meat grinder with a tomato attachment. The resulting cake can not be thrown away, but filled with heated water, allowed to saturate for a day and squeeze again. Secondary juice is added to the first extraction in a ratio of no more than 20%.

To enhance the fermentation process in apple mash, you can make a fruit sourdough, which is made from unwashed apples to use natural wild yeast. The fruits are chopped, mixed with warm water and sugar and allowed to brew for several days. When the sourdough begins to ferment, it is added to the main apple mash. The amount of the added amplifier is not more than 3-4% of the main raw material.

Standing apple mash takes place in a cool place at a temperature of 20-25 ° С. In a colder room, the duration of the process increases. Fermentation time varies from 1 month to six months. At the end of the release of carbon dioxide and the formation of a stable sediment, the preparation of the mash can be considered complete.

Distilling cider into moonshine

Fermented apple mash, according to the traditional recipe, must be distilled twice. After the first distillation, an intermediate raw moonshine of a turbid color with a strength of 30–35% is obtained. The secondary product already has 65-70% strength and is a real apple moonshine. The amount of the resulting drink for each distillation is half the volume of the original raw material. Thus, from 40 liters of apple mash, we get 10 liters of pure moonshine. It should be remembered that during the secondary distillation, the first drops of the outgoing product are harmful impurities, which must be collected separately and disposed of. The beginning of the process of obtaining edible ethyl alcohol occurs from a temperature above 70 ° C.

Particular attention should be paid to the purification of the resulting product. The resulting apple moonshine contains a sufficient amount of fusel oils and impurities, which noticeably impair the taste and smell of the drink. Cleaning can be done in a variety of ways. The most common methods of using potassium permanganate, charcoal or activated carbon. Crushed cleaning elements are poured into liquid and infused for several days. It is necessary to periodically shake the containers with moonshine to improve adsorption. The drink is then filtered to recover the resulting sediment. As a filter, you can use several layers of gauze, medium density cloth or special filter paper. Commercial water filters are also suitable. The resulting purified moonshine is ready to be turned into calvados.

Final stage

Most spirits are infused in oak barrels at the final stage of preparation. By absorbing substances from wood, moonshine acquires a traditional light brown color, the necessary taste and smell. Barrels for Calvados are prepared in a special way. They are pre-poured in boiling water to swell the boards in order to increase the release of the necessary ingredients. Then fill with moonshine from the first distillation and leave for 2-3 weeks. Then the containers are emptied and filled with the purified secondary distillation product. The final apple brandy is aged within 8-12 months. To obtain collectible calvados, the aging time is increased to 6 years. Special varieties have special inscriptions certifying the year of production of the drink.

This technology is cumbersome and is used in the official manufacturing plants of Calvados. At home, it is possible to mature apple moonshine in glass bottles with oak chips. Sawdust or shavings can impart a bitter taste to the drink. Infusion should be carried out in a dark, cool room. Old recipes recommend "marrying" Calvados. To do this, stir moonshine made from different mixtures of fruit varieties. As a result, you can get a variety of blends with great aromas and flavoring bouquets.

When you decide that the aging of the traditional apple brandy is over, the drink is filled into glass bottles and sealed tightly. You should not use plastic containers, they can worsen the taste and smell and do not correspond to the solidity of Calvados.

So, the classic French drink is ready. Of course, we can talk about the duration and difficulty of making real apple moonshine, but it's worth it. The nobility of Calvados will make you proud of your skill.