Brandy

Brandy is a distilled spirit made from wine or fermented fruit juice. It may be aged in wood or bottled unaged, depending on its style.

Pot still: A batch distillation apparatus consisting chiefly of a heated vessel, condenser, and connecting neck or lyne arm. Traditional pot distillation concentrates wine or fruit spirit while retaining aromatic compounds.
Cognac: A French grape brandy made in the Cognac region under a protected designation and defined production rules. Cognac is a prominent regional style made from distilled wine.
Wine: An alcoholic beverage produced by fermenting grape juice or other fruit juice. Wine is the principal fermented base for grape brandy.
Whisky: A distilled spirit made from fermented grain mash and commonly matured in wooden casks. Whisky begins with grain rather than wine or fermented fruit juice.
Column still: A continuous distillation apparatus that separates volatile compounds through repeated vaporization and condensation in a column. It offers a continuous alternative to the batch distillation often used for brandy.
Armagnac: A French grape brandy from Gascony, commonly distilled in a distinctive continuous still and matured in oak. Armagnac offers a regional alternative to Cognac with a different distilling tradition.
Fermentation: A metabolic process in which microorganisms convert sugars into products such as ethanol and carbon dioxide. Fermentation produces the alcohol-bearing liquid that brandy distillation begins with.
Rum: A distilled spirit made from sugarcane products such as molasses or fresh cane juice. Rum’s sugarcane base distinguishes it from fruit-based brandy.
Distillation: A separation process that uses differences in volatility to enrich a vapor in selected compounds. Brandy production concentrates alcohol from fermented liquid through this broader process.
Calvados: A protected French apple brandy, with some varieties also incorporating pears, produced in Normandy. Calvados shows how fermented fruit other than grapes can become brandy.

Linked from 8 pages