Glossary
Distillation
Heating a fermented liquid to vaporize the alcohol (which boils at 78°C, lower than water at 100°C) and condensing the vapor back to liquid — concentrating the spirit.
The technology came out of Persian-Arab alchemy in the 8th–9th centuries (the word alcohol itself is Arabic). Mongols carried the technique to East Asia in the 13th century, where it gave Korea soju and Japan shōchū. Europe got distillation from the same Arab transmission and eventually built brandy, gin, vodka, and whisky on it.
The still doesn’t make alcohol — fermentation does. Distillation concentrates what fermentation produced. Single distillation gives roughly 30–40% ABV; double distillation 50–60%; triple distillation 70%+. The number of distillations and the cut points (when to keep the running spirit, when to discard) are the craft.