right now we have all five stills charged with the 6% juice, which is the fermented apple juice. and as the stills run, this first run today, we'll bump that up, might get to 50 proof, maybe 60 proof. we'll collect all that first run distillate and then run it through on wednesday. we'll double everything. we'll run it a second time through the still. each time you distill, you gain proof, but you lose volume. our goal is to try to get 50 to 60 gallons at the end of the process of hopefully some 90 something proof apple brandy. >> was this something that a lot of farmers would've done to make apple brandy? or was that unusual? >> no, it was a drink at the time. a lot of people, farmers are distilling, as well, various things. because really, a still is a piece of farm equipment in the 18th and 17th century, even the 19th century. if you're a small farmer, you're going to probably make a little whiskey on the side. you may do some apple jack, hard cider or brandy and the amount of orchards some of these farms had, it was a natural side business to be in. a lot of alcohol is also l

apple juice that turns into...? - exactly. it's apple juice, but it's frozen apples, so it's a very concentrated, high level of sugar before fermentationich yields this sweet dessert-style wine. - like port a bit. - yeah, it's a sweet wine a bit in that style, exactly. like ice wines, or sauternes, or any of the other--tokajis--any of the other sweet wines you would find, yeah. - and apples--am i wrong--apples obviously are more sturdy than a grape; therefore, i would assume, you have less falloff from, i don't know, bad weather and so on. i mean, they don't spoil as easily as grapes, i would imagine. i don't know if that's true. - yeah, they're a little more hardy, and you can have total write-offs in grapes. but we'll have higher productions and lesser yields, depending on the year. we probably lose about 30% to ground-falls, and we don't use any of the ground-falls-- - why not? - just because once they fall, we found that they don't have the same taste and profile. they get contaminated a bit by what's on the ground. - you could pick 'em up. you could run around in the morning. don't you pick them up? - not the ground-- the ground-