6 ms·

Brandy is made from wine, vodka is made from potatoes or grain. The one time I went to Romania I was given a lot of homemade brandy with fruit, all of which app

Brandy is made from wine, vodka is made from potatoes or grain. The one time I went to Romania I was given a lot of homemade brandy with fruit, all of which appeared to have been distilled from Moscato wine and then having fruit added. That's definitely not vodka.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
> The one time I went to Romania I was given a lot of homemade brandy with fruit, all of which appeared to have been distilled from Moscato wine and then having fruit added. You are either wrong about this, or you were served something very unusual. Brandy in Romania is overwhelmingly produced solely from fruit, with no role for wine at all. I have witnessed the production process myself while staying in the countryside.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  All I can say is that my girlfriend's father made the brandy from Moscato, and his parents made the same thing, and claimed it was made that way since before the Communists showed up. I saw the fruit orchard and the vineyard. However, you're missing the point as it relates to this discussion. Fruit brandy made from fruit is like wine, not vodka. If you want to fight to the death that my girlfriend's parents and great-grandparents are atypical, that's totally fine.
  - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
    There is a tradition within Romania of making distilled spirits from wine (vinars), but as I said, that is a very niche product and you just seem to have happened to run into it. Most of the country distills their brandy purely from fruit. In a lot of the villages that produce Romanian fruit brandy, grapes are not even grown by any of the families at all.
  - boomskats 7y ago
    I just can't see how distilling mashed-up plums/pears/quince/apricot, in a still - mashed up for the single purpose of being distilled in that still - can be considered more similar to fermenting grape juice, than it is to distilling other things in a still (even potatoes). Hence my comment. I don't know where your girlfriend's father is from, I'm guessing from behind the iron curtain somewhere based on the comment about the Communists. I'm sure he made good brandy from moscato. However rakija is not made from wine nor does it have anything to do with it culturally from a consumption standpoint.
  - skinner_ 7y ago
    Here is a guess: It was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomace_brandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomace_brandy , törkölypálinka in Hungarian, created from the leftover fruit pulp after pressing the grapes for wine. That's what Italians call grappa. The other possibility is distilled grape juice, that is brandy, but brandy is much less common in Eastern Europe, they prefer to turn their grape juice into wine.
petre 7y ago
Not necessarily and it depends on the region. If it's a wine region, yes, they usually make it from distilled wine. Otherwise it's made from fruit. Or both. For instance after one squeezes the grapes for wine, the leftover pulp and skin is used to make grape brandy (tescovina). Also leftover wine from filtering or from a barrel that was left less than half empty for a longer period and the wine oxydized is distilled to make wine brandy (vinars). They taste differently and are called differently. Tescovina has a more fruity flavour, while vinars tastes like pure alcohol with a mild grape skin or seed flavour. Other brandies in other regions are made mostly from fruit, either distilled once (rachiu, tuica) or twice (palinca) depending on the region. Usually in the north you have double distillation (like in Hungary) and in the south they distill it only once (like in Greece). And then of course there's grain alcohol but that's almost never home made but rather industrially produced. It's used to produce home made sweet fruit brandies from sour cherries or wild berries.
- simonh 7y ago
  Are Vinars sounds a lot like Grappa, is that right?
  - new2628 7y ago
    Yes, or a kind of cognac -- also "vinars" comes from "vin ars", literally meaning "burnt wine", possibly a mirror translation of "Weinbrand" in german or transylvanian saxon dialects.
  - petre 7y ago
    Dunno about grappa, but vinars is distilled wine which is either consumed directly or used to make cognac by aging it in oak casks or with oak splinters and maybe adding some additional ingredients such as vanilla, black tea or Sambucus flower infusion. It really depends on the producer and the recipe, but home made cognac is made like that. Each producer obviously has their own recipe. The best I've had was just aged in an oak barrel for 15y. It had a mild amberish colour. The ones made with splinters or wood residue have a too pronounced oak taste.
- new2628 7y ago

Mediterraneo10 7y ago

> The one time I went to Romania I was given a lot of homemade brandy with fruit, all of which appeared to have been distilled from Moscato wine and then having fruit added. You are either wrong about this, or you were served something very unusual. Brandy in Romania is overwhelmingly produced solely from fruit, with no role for wine at all. I have witnessed the production process myself while staying in the countryside.

greglindahl 7y ago
All I can say is that my girlfriend's father made the brandy from Moscato, and his parents made the same thing, and claimed it was made that way since before the Communists showed up. I saw the fruit orchard and the vineyard. However, you're missing the point as it relates to this discussion. Fruit brandy made from fruit is like wine, not vodka. If you want to fight to the death that my girlfriend's parents and great-grandparents are atypical, that's totally fine.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  There is a tradition within Romania of making distilled spirits from wine (vinars), but as I said, that is a very niche product and you just seem to have happened to run into it. Most of the country distills their brandy purely from fruit. In a lot of the villages that produce Romanian fruit brandy, grapes are not even grown by any of the families at all.
- boomskats 7y ago
  I just can't see how distilling mashed-up plums/pears/quince/apricot, in a still - mashed up for the single purpose of being distilled in that still - can be considered more similar to fermenting grape juice, than it is to distilling other things in a still (even potatoes). Hence my comment. I don't know where your girlfriend's father is from, I'm guessing from behind the iron curtain somewhere based on the comment about the Communists. I'm sure he made good brandy from moscato. However rakija is not made from wine nor does it have anything to do with it culturally from a consumption standpoint.
- skinner_ 7y ago
  Here is a guess: It was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomace_brandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomace_brandy , törkölypálinka in Hungarian, created from the leftover fruit pulp after pressing the grapes for wine. That's what Italians call grappa. The other possibility is distilled grape juice, that is brandy, but brandy is much less common in Eastern Europe, they prefer to turn their grape juice into wine.

petre 7y ago

Not necessarily and it depends on the region. If it's a wine region, yes, they usually make it from distilled wine. Otherwise it's made from fruit. Or both. For instance after one squeezes the grapes for wine, the leftover pulp and skin is used to make grape brandy (tescovina). Also leftover wine from filtering or from a barrel that was left less than half empty for a longer period and the wine oxydized is distilled to make wine brandy (vinars). They taste differently and are called differently. Tescovina has a more fruity flavour, while vinars tastes like pure alcohol with a mild grape skin or seed flavour. Other brandies in other regions are made mostly from fruit, either distilled once (rachiu, tuica) or twice (palinca) depending on the region. Usually in the north you have double distillation (like in Hungary) and in the south they distill it only once (like in Greece). And then of course there's grain alcohol but that's almost never home made but rather industrially produced. It's used to produce home made sweet fruit brandies from sour cherries or wild berries.

simonh 7y ago
Are Vinars sounds a lot like Grappa, is that right?
- new2628 7y ago
  Yes, or a kind of cognac -- also "vinars" comes from "vin ars", literally meaning "burnt wine", possibly a mirror translation of "Weinbrand" in german or transylvanian saxon dialects.
- petre 7y ago
  Dunno about grappa, but vinars is distilled wine which is either consumed directly or used to make cognac by aging it in oak casks or with oak splinters and maybe adding some additional ingredients such as vanilla, black tea or Sambucus flower infusion. It really depends on the producer and the recipe, but home made cognac is made like that. Each producer obviously has their own recipe. The best I've had was just aged in an oak barrel for 15y. It had a mild amberish colour. The ones made with splinters or wood residue have a too pronounced oak taste.
new2628 7y ago