Alcohol Distillation and Its Impact on Social Justice

Alcohol distillation involves extracting aromatic and volatile substances from fermented liquid through heat and condensing them into a condensed form for further processing, known as distillate. Once collected, this liquid can then be packaged, aged in barrels, macerated with fruit or herbs or modified by maceration to customize flavor profiles. Though safe when executed correctly, liquor factories generate large volumes of wash water, process effluent, by-product liquids that must be appropriately treated to protect both their customers’ safety as well as harm the environment due to high levels of nutrients, organic matter chemicals and microorganisms that could harm their suppliers as well.

Distillation requires significant amounts of energy, most of which comes from burning fossil fuels to heat and cool the distillery equipment. Unfortunately, this practice depletes finite resources while contributing to global warming and climate change; hence it is vitally important that anyone looking to start up a small fuel alcohol plant evaluates short and long term availability and costs of alternative sources of powering their equipment at their distillery.

Distillation of alcoholic beverage products requires an in-depth knowledge and appreciation for distillation processes and systems necessary for designing and operating small fuel alcohol plants, which should be approached with professional support from competent technical consultants and engineering firms. This publication serves as a useful starting point to develop this understanding, with basic information that should help those interested in this project gain a thorough understanding of distillation as a process, the types of equipment, systems and controls required, as well as any design considerations needed when setting up and operating small plants.