For example, I’ve heard bourbon is sweeter than other whiskies because it’s made from corn, rhum agricole is grassy because of sugarcane, and tequila is vegetal because of agave. What I understand is distillation concentrates alcohol because alcohol has a lower boiling point than water, so it’s heated and the vapor condenses on the other side. So how do flavors make it through? Also, aren’t sugars way bigger/heavier than alcohol and water? How do they make it all the way through?
In: Chemistry
One of the most important factors in distillation is that regardless of boiling points you get a bit of everything at all temperatures of boiling in your retort. I’ve done plenty of distillations and you can’t isolate purely on temp. You will need to do multiple distillations to get the purest most separated product which is why copper plates in compartmentalized columns are popular. They allow for many sections of the distill to have slightly different temperatures where they re-distill back to the last temp zone without going all the way back to the boiling flask and then once the closer separated components move a little further up the distill, at the end you will get more of the narrowly separated desired chemical. In alcohol this is done for ethanol and to remove water and methanol.
To more answer your question: you will get some of the flavour compounds in the distillation and to fully remove them takes many distillations. Again with alcohol as an example this is why you see “5 x distilled” and such on vodkas because they’re mostly going for neutral flavour
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