Wheat, corn and potatoes can be basic of Vodka, Whiskey, Gin, beer and more.
What makes the difference in the taste and type of the alcohol of they are all just fermented carbohydrates?
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Alcohols aren’t all made from the same ingredients. Rum is made from sugar cane, gin is made from juniper berries, and tequila is made from agave. Vodka specifically can be made from many different things because it’s just two ingredients, ethanol and water. Distill any liquor, add water, now you have vodka.
The aging process of distilled spirits define the taste & color of the final product. Spirits like Gin have botanicals added to the distilled spirits. Clear spirits like vodka & white rum are not aged in wooden barrels. The type of wood the barrel is made from imparts different flavors to the alcohol. The wood itself mellows out the flavor through absorption. Blending different whiskeys also determines the flavor of the final product
>they are all just fermented carbohydrates?
That is a vastly over simplified viewpoint. There is more to an agave plant or sugar cane than just pure sugar to ferment.
In the same way eating corn and a potato taste different, even though they’re both carbs.
Other compounds in the original product ferment differently. Additionally there are other processes, and amounts are different. Agave in tequila is roasted before fermentation and can be aged in oak barrels, which also change the flavor. Gin is flavored with other plants like juniper. Even something relatively simple like vodka can have differing amounts of certain compounds due to how distillation works. There are so many differing factors from the original material, how it’s treated(roasted longer or shorter, its original sugar content), how long and how it ferments, etc.
Broadly speaking you’re talking about non-distilled alcohol, clear spirits, and barrel aged spirits.
You need to ferment to create alcohol, and at that point you might have a beer (depending on the ratio and specific ingredients), next you distill getting rid of much of the water content increasing your alcohol concentration and loosing a lot of “impurities” this process can be repeated and slight changes can be made, like adding ‘botanicals’ (like juniper) and that will have a significant impact on the clear liquid you produce. That botanical infused spirit is a gin like product, without it you have something closer to a vodka, if you have further patience you can store the clear distilled spirit in charred barrels for a few years and the temperature variance will cycle the spirit in and out of the wood and it will pick up new impurities and the amber coloured liquid is a whiskey like drink.
Like most food, small changes at any point in this can have drastic impacts on the final product, so much so that we categorized the hell out of it. So just like how mac and cheese is better when dad makes it than when mom makes it, there’s also a clear difference between that and spaghetti night.
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