Using Rotary Evaporator and Microwave Distillation to minimise energy use and how they can play their part in a distiller’s tool box

Symphonia Spirits is a multi-award-winning company that uses science in harmony with nature to compose spirits with a symphony of flavour notes.

It showcases the local botanicals that grow in County Armagh, the Orchard of Ireland. It uses science to reduce food miles by finding local substitutes containing flavour molecules found in exotic botanicals, and science to extract flavours using cutting edge distillation processes.

Its products include a Irish dry gin judged the Best Gin in Ireland 2019 at the Irish Gin awards, a unique Armagh Bramley apple gin, a Summer Fruit Cup, and their most recent development, an Irish Apple rum.

The company was founded by Ric Dyer, a chemist who spent 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry helping to discover treatments for various diseases, including HIV and influenza, and developing cost and energy efficient manufacturing processes.

Latterly he turned his attention to gin making, bringing an innovative perspective to the industry. Understanding what molecules there are in a botanical and their physical properties, such as lipophilicity, stability, volatility allows us to tailor distillation conditions to isolate them with the minimum ethanol/water (hence energy), which is so important in this age of environmental responsibility.

An example of the effect of heat on botanicals will be shown to emphasise the importance of controlling temperature in the still to get the flavours you want, and preventing the flavours you don’t want. A rotary evaporator is a really useful piece of equipment to help you perfect isolating the particular flavour molecules you want, and microwave distillation is an efficient way to isolate flavour molecules from botanicals using hydro-distillation. The seminar will demonstrate how these two can work together in a super-efficient way.

Email: ulrich@woodlabdistillery.com
Woodlab Distillery
Moy Business Park
237 Trewmount Road
Moy
Co. Tyrone
BT71 7ED