Q: Distillation cuts?
“What are the different distillation cuts?”
A: When distilling any spirit, there are parts of the distillate that you want to keep and others that you want to toss out. Depending on vernacular, the distillation cuts are called the heads (or foreshots), hearts (or spirit) and tails (or faints). They condense off the still in that order and the hearts cut is what the distiller keeps, ages and bottles.
Distillers spend years perfecting their distillation cuts, aiming to maximize both alcohol yield and desirable flavors in the hearts. I say “their distillation cuts” intentionally because it is treated as a sacred recipe created by that distiller for that specific spirit. And rightfully so. Not only are the flavors of the whiskey impacted, but whether or not it’s safe to drink is directly dependent on the distillation cuts. Don’t worry, distillers know what they’re doing and that whiskey you’re drinking right now is safe. So let’s talk about the different distillation cuts!
We’ll start with the heads
The chemical compounds with the lowest boiling points come off the still first, like acetaldehyde (green flavors), acetone (nail polish remover), esters (fruity and floral flavors), methanol and ethanol. These are what make up the heads, aka foreshots. The distiller wants to remove the undesirable compounds, especially methanol, without losing too much of the esters and ethanol. Taking a larger or smaller heads cut will influence the amount of ethereal, floral and fruity flavors in the whiskey and that’s determined by the distiller. Some distilleries will redistill the heads with the hopes of salvaging a portion of the delicious esters and ethanol. Now, we’ve all heard horror stories about moonshiners going blind from drinking their hooch, right? This is from methanol toxicity, which is a result of not taking the proper heads cut (or from drinking the heads. Do not do that!). But again, don’t worry, distillers know what they’re doing.
Next, the hearts
The next compounds that come off the still with slightly higher boiling points will make up the hearts cut. A majority of this is ethanol and some water with small quantities of esters, carboxylic acids (sour), phenols from peated malt (smoky) and higher alcohols. Again, each distiller has their own unique hearts or spirit cut that will involve keeping more or less of these other compounds depending on the desired flavor profile. For example, Laphroaig embraces the medical and tarry flavors of heavier phenols by taking big heads and hearts cuts. That means they’re removing a lot of the light esters in the heads and keeping the phenolic compounds in the spirit because they know that will evolve into a uniquely beautiful whisky with aging.
And finally, the tails
This is the liquid that condenses off the still last and is mostly water and higher alcohols. There is not much ethanol left in the tails, aka faints, and the flavors are usually bitter and undesirable. Similarly with the heads, the tails is sometimes recycled into the next distillation to recover alcohol and/or flavors. Other times, if the tails are just going to be discarded, they’re not actually distilled. Meaning the heat from the still is shut off after the hearts cut is complete, leaving the tails in the still to be disposed of.
If you’re interested in diving into the nitty gritty of distilling, I’ll be posting details on the distillation chemistry and application up on the blog. So stay tuned!
Other Q&A Posts
“What are the different distillation cuts?” When distilling any spirit, there are parts of the distillate that you want to keep and others that you want to toss out. The distillation cuts are commonly referred to as the heads, hearts and tails and they condense off the still in that order. The hearts cut is what the distiller keeps, ages and bottles. Read about the composition of each distillation cut and more here!