Distillation

How is Armenian brandy distilled? Brandy is typically distilled in copper, and according to the houses in Yerevan, such as Ararat and Noy, that holds true here too: the wine is heated in a pot still, the alcohol rises as vapor, cools in a tube, and drips back down as distillate. Copper binds unwanted sulfur compounds and is therefore the preferred material.

Fundamentally, there are two paths for brandy. With a pot still, the wine is distilled in stages, yielding a broad, aromatic spirit. The column is a tall tower in which the vapor is continuously purified, delivering a lighter, cleaner spirit. Both methods are permitted for brandy; only the type of equipment varies by house.

What matters most is the cut. The first portion, the heads, smells sharply of solvent and is discarded. The middle cut, the heart, is the actual spirit. The tails, with heavy, oily notes, are collected separately. Where the distiller makes the cut shapes the style far more than any number on the label.

With Oghi, there's an added factor: apricots and other fruits contain pectin, from which methanol already forms in the mash, not just during distillation. Fruit brandies therefore naturally carry more of it than wine brandy, and the EU sets separate maximum limits for this. Cutting off the heads only partially reduces methanol.

In Armenia, many families distill their own Oghi in small copper stills. In Germany this is prohibited without a license, and fruit owners have their produce distilled at a custom distillery instead. Here, the point is purely to understand the process.