Rakija, step by step

1. Fruit brandy and the law

Fruit brandy is the most legally sensitive product of any holding.

1. Ask before anything else — Before any still is lit, check with the excise authority: licence, still notification and duty. Write your questions down in advance.
2. Answer on paper — Get the answer in writing, or note the official's name and the date. Ask HMRC in the UK, Revenue in Ireland, the TTB in the US and the CRA in Canada.
3. Still and licence — Ask whether you need permission just to own the still, and to use it. Without a licence, a licensed craft distillery can distil your fruit under contract.
4. No selling — Distilling or selling spirits without a licence is a criminal offence in all four markets. The spirit, the still and sometimes vehicles can be seized.

Why: Spirits carry excise duty in every market, so distilling is regulated far more strictly than wine or cider. Unlike wine and cider, there is no home-use exemption: in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada, distilling spirits without a licence is illegal, even in small amounts and for your own use.

• Craft distillers' associations and your Extension service or Teagasc adviser can also help.
• If someone is poisoned by spirit you made, you face criminal liability.

2. Sound fruit and mash

Good fruit brandy is "made in the orchard".

1. Fully ripe fruit — Plums are shaken when they start to drop by themselves. Pick up shaken fruit within 1–2 days, before it rots.
2. Sorting — Throw out mouldy and rotten fruit, leaves, twigs, soil and stalks. A few bruised fruits are fine.
3. Stones stay whole — Crush the fruit so that the stones stay whole. Crushed stones give ethyl carbamate and hydrogen cyanide.
4. Barrel to 3/4, no enzymes — Put the mash into clean food-grade barrels to three-quarters, the same day. Don't add pectic enzymes: they increase methanol.

Why: Methanol forms in the mash from pectin in the skin and flesh of the fruit. Distilling can't remove it completely, so the most important thing is that as little as possible forms in the mash.

• Mill pears, apples and quinces finely; remove apricot stones.
• No distiller can make good spirit from rotten, mouldy mash.

3. Fermenting the mash · Locked

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4. A still without accidents · Locked

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5. Heads, hearts and tails · Locked

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6. Strength and storage · Locked

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