I made a 5 gal+ batch of damson wine back in September. I tried to kill the natural yeast with campden tablets before adding good wine yeast and fermenting. I didn’t realise the CTs were out of date, so the natural yeasts didn’t die, and actually grew a nasty layer of mould on the top. I removed the mould, killed off the yeasts with some fresh CTs and fermented on, but the wine had a nasty niff and off taste. Kind of expected that.

What to do? Try distilling it, of course!

Managed six 4 litre runs in my SS.
Tossed the first 50 ml of each run, kept the next 45 mins of output (about 650 ml @ 55%) and ran for another hour as tails (about 500 ml @ 22%),
Watered the 650ml down to a litre at 35%, and this drinks very nicely as a plum schnapps/Sliwowitz kind of thing. I got 6 litres of this from a very dodgy wine.
The tails are sitting, waiting to be put through again when I get round to it. Probably won’t come to anything much, but it’s a good result from something that would otherwise have been poured down the drain.
Next year I’ll try to do an extra 5 gallon batch of good wine, purely to make schnapps.

I also distilled a gallon of elderflower wine, a gallon of apple, and a gallon of apple and elderflower, following a similar method. They all came out really nice. The A&E was my fave.

Any help I would be Gratefu

There are a few “off the shelf” reflux still’s that will up the % ABV from your wash/mash mixes. Even then, they have a limited ability to remove water and only get to a certain level/strength/concentration.

I’ve been looking around to see if I can find out about modifying some kit to make a vacuum still, as it would appear that if I can manage that, I should be able to get some very high purity ethanol, but run the still at a much lower temperature (I’m no expert but I think I’ve read it right).