How did liquor and liqueur makers add flavor to their products?

Question

I have been serving drinks for a while now but it never occured to me how they flavor most liquor and liqueurs.

Are most flavoring included or maintained during fermentation?

Are the flavor synthetic or natural?

Answer 1

Ethanol is a moderately good solvent for many "fatty" substances and essential "oils", and thus facilitates the inclusion of several colouring, flavouring, and aromatic compounds to alcoholic beverages, especially to distilled ones. These flavouring ingredients may be naturally present in the starting material, or may be added before fermentation, before distillation, or before bottling the distilled product. Sometimes the flavour is obtained by allowing the beverage to stand for months or years in barrels made of special wood, or in bottles where scented twigs or fruits — or even insects — have been inserted.

Flavored liquors are distilled alcoholic beverages with added flavorings. They are distinct from liqueurs in that liqueurs have a high sugar content, whereas flavored liquors contain no added sugar.

Flavored liquors include:

Absinthe (wormwood, anise, fennel, and other herbs)
Arak (anise)
Gin (juniper and other herbs)
Raki (anise)
Flavored vodkas (numerous flavors including lemon, orange, raspberry, vanilla, black currant, chile pepper, lime, cherry, apple, and buffalo grass)

Answer 2

A couple of ways that I can think...

Infused - passing the liquor or liqueur through whatever the fruit, spice, etc.

Adding the flavor to the liquor or liqueur which could be artificial or natural, this one being the most common.

Answer 3

Most liquor is made by fermenting a mash (like sugar cane for rum or grain for Whiskey) and then distilling it using a pot still. The pot still brings over a lot of flavor with the alcohol. A good distiller can fine tune it to bring over good flavor while leaving bad flavors with the mash. This is then aged in inactive barrels for a short period of time, or not at all, in the case of clear or light liquors (such as light rum), or put in an active barrel made of a chosen wood (active means it will leach flavor from the wood into the alcohol) for a certain amount of time. That gives it the golden or dark color and thicker flavor to dark liquor (like dark rum). The age given, say for whiskey is how long it was stored in one of these barrels. It is then taken out, water is added to dilute it down to bottling strength and then sealed to be sold.
Some cheaper makers will add caramel coloring to fake long term aging.

Other liquors use a base high proof neutral alcohol, mix it with herbs and then distill the product. (such as Ouzo).

Liqueurs are normally made by taking a base spirit (such as grain alcohol (everclear)) and soaking fruit or herbs and sugar in the alcohol. Filtering it and then bottle the result.

Answer 4

It is done a number of ways. First there are the natural flavors from whatever is used to create the beverage in the first place. Also what type of vessel it was made in say charred white oak casks. To that is added all sorts of flavorings from fruit syrups, spices and herbs to make a unique tasting liquor or liqueur.

Answer 5

Gin is flavored by adding juniper berries in the distilling process. Man do they stink when they're strained out!