Brew Dr. Kombucha, the kombucha brand of Townshend’s Tea Company of Portland, Oregon, uses a unique method to lower the fermented tea drink from its natural 1 to 3 percent ABV to the below 0.5 percent legal limit for nonalcoholic beverages.

Then it uses the by-products to help make gasoline (and other stuff). Here’s the most interesting beverage production process in the country:

Step 1: The tea is steeped with sugar, then strained through a 500-micron filter to remove tea leaves, producing sweet tea.



Step 2: Sweet tea ferments in tanks with 2,000 gallons of symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, known as SCOBY, which looks like a giant phlegm Frisbee. In 2 to 4 weeks, you get Kombucha, but it is too alcoholic to be sold.

Step 3: The kombucha is heated to 104 degrees, then passed through a spinning cone column (SCC). That removes ethanol (at 12% to 14% ABV) without altering flavor, unlike dilution—which is what most brands do. The end product of the SCC? Kombucha at 0.1% ABV—low enough to sell.

Step 4: The ethanol is divided into chilling tanks. Some tanks are filled according to the flavor of the original tea. When 5,000 gallons are collected, the ethanol is passed through the SCC again to get it to typical strength for a spirit, 40% ABV—in this case, White Rose Spirits.

Step 5: The rest of the ethanol is stored with no regard to flavor. At 10,000 gallons, it gets shipped to Pacific Ethanol in Boardman, Oregon, where it’s further fermented with corn stock, then distilled to remove corn and passed through a molecular sieve for purification, yielding pure ethanol. The removed corn is collected to be used as corn feedstock.

Step 6: The ethanol is blended with gasoline at a standardized 90:10 ratio, then sent to gas pumps in Portland.



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