Wines and spirits

[123everton]

What is the difference between a wine and a spirit?
I have got some rice wine in the house that is 56% proof, why is this a wine and not a spirit?

[chrisrob]

Wine is naturally fermented and spirit is distilled.

[pug100]

Rice wine is only usually around 20% proof

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_wine

To get the higher alcohol content some form of distilling is required as using traditional methods the increasing alcohol content of the brew kills off the fermenting process.

[chrisrob]

Perhaps 123everton's wine is fortified. ie. a mix of wine and spirit?

[123everton]

Says 56% on the bottle and tastes like turps (at first) gets you there in half the time the trouble is once you get there you've forgotten what it was you went for!
It's called Beijing rice wine if I remember correctly.

[Booldawg]

Theorically, yeast can only produce an alcoholic beverage no stronger than 23% ABV. Any stronger would involve some level of distillation.

[kujawski]

i was always under the impression that if something said x% proof, you should halve this to get normal % age,

i.e some jamaican rums may say 95% proof, which makes them 47.5% in comparison to your average bells cooking whiskey, which is 40 % or 80% proof


but i may be wrong

[123everton]

So if it says 40% on the bottle it's only 20% in reality, so my 56% is actually only 28%.
P.S.
I don't mind Bells, for what it is (a cheap whisky) it's quite palatable.
Quasimodo loved it...

[kujawski]

i think only if is says proof, after the amount ie: 95% proof

well thats what i was told , i may be wrong,

but logically i cant Fathom how a liquid can be say 110% proof? as some of them claim to be,

so there is actually 1.1litre of alcohol in a 1L bottle, i dont think you can distill it more than 100%, and at that 100% it evaporates at a fantastic rate anyway.

[oculist]

To find alcohol by volume, divide the proof by 7 and multiply by 4. A standard spirit of 70proof is 40 % alcohol.