Still Smarter

Bit of an experiment today.

After watching Still It and Bearded and Bored make a tequila-like drink from sweet potatoes and agave syrup/nectar, i thought i would give it a go myself!

Doing a 23 litre batch, I started with 5kg of sweet potatoes - roasted half in the oven and the other half was roasted with cherry chips and coals on the bbq. Afterwards i put everything in the boiler with 1/2 kg of oats for mouthfeel, and brought to the boil for 30 mins, then when cooled to 80c I blitzed it up with a whisk attachment for my drill, added alpha amylase and left it for an hour.

After that i strained into brew bucket (the hardest part of the whole thing), gravity reading was 1.025 so I added 3.5 litres of agave syrup which took it to 1.065, still a bit low, so added 2 kg inverted white sugar.

SG is 1.100 and it's just cooling down so i can pitch the yeast and nutrients. I only have D47 Chardonnay yeast but think that will work ok. Looking at 13-14% when fermented out so should give me a good yield.

Smells really good, smokey and sweet, hope some of that carries over to the spirit.

I have a still spirits top shelf tequila flavour, will see how the spirit comes out but might test a little bit with some flavouring to up the tequila flavour. Haven't decided yet.

Anyone tried similar?

I am interested in seeing if the tequila flavour carry over comes across in the distillate without the use of an essence.

Keep us posted on your findings after your spirit run and cuts are done.

No.No. No. it all tastes like shit even if the devil makes it correctly, I think that's why he encourages the Mexican's to drink it.

The only advantage I can see in producing that is you can include the heads and foreshots in the bottle and it would probably taste better.... of course I realise this is subjective, down to taste, and Tequila is an acquired taste. But it like setting out to acquire herpes or piles, not for me.

After watching Still It and Bearded and Bored make a tequila-like drink from sweet potatoes and agave syrup/nectar, i thought i would give it a go myself!

I don't drink a lot of tequila but I prefer Silver, think of it as White Dog Tequila.
One of my first runs years ago I don't remember what it was but the results of the stripping run had a strong resemblance to Silver or Blanco
TO ME.

I've seen recipes for FAUX-Quila that use sweet potatoes and bread yeast.
And a few seasons ago I saw an episode of "Moonshiners" with Mark & Digger experimenting with a load of sweet potatoes.
They just chopped and boiled the potatoes but then tried different batches with
Molasses
Brown Sugar
White Sugar.
I was surprised they preferred the White Sugar.

I'm anxious to follow YOUR thread ESPECIALLY with the roasting and smoking the potatoes!
One my long LONG To Do List is try
Roasting Sweet Potatoes to caramelize those sugars & ALSO roast a pineapple (even though it's only a DISTANT relative to agave)
invert the sugar, MAYBE smoke the sugar as well with the potatoes.
I'll try to keep the SG down around 8% shooting for more flavor.
Make cuts on the stripping run just to see how a one and done compares to some commercial I have in the liquor cabinet.

Best of luck!!!!!

TDick wrote: Sun Nov 16, 2025 7:52 pm ALSO roast a pineapple (even though it's only a DISTANT relative to agave)

That's a good idea. It's a bit late to mess with it now but it's something i may consider for next time. I also read that Jerusalem artichokes could be a good substitute for agave, they have similar inulin levels i think? Never see it fur sale but there's some specialist shops in town that may sell it. Will keep my eyes peeled.

I am a complete novice at this by the way, (i have done some gin and stripping runs on my Airstill, and recently bought 2 inch column from Ali Express), and i don't even drink tequila often. I just liked the idea of having a try at it.

I have to say it's still smelling pretty great. The BBQ and smoke aroma is strong enough that i believe some of it has got to carry over.

I will update you as it progresses!