myVodkaMaker is a new startup I created to bring to life the patent I filed after I was inspirited to reduce the height of my thin reflux distilling column by winding it into a spiral to make it the size of a small coffee machine.

My home distillation journey started in South Africa during the hard lockdown of 2020 when there was a complete alcohol ban(to save hospital beds they said). There were no supplies available at all span>so I build a small still with what I had at hand. As a boiler I used a 10L plastic bucket span>and old kettle element ... it was awful.

Actually, the spirit was quite drinkable. It was an awful pain to fill, heat, watch and dump 6 liters of wash at a time. I had some plumbing laying around, so I built a 22mm continuous still. Running such a small still is like balancing a unicycle so it was essential to use some electronics and firmware from another project I had made before to drive the still.

At that stage, I knew very little about distilling and could only build an inefficient still making it very very very slow and as soon as I could I upgraded to 50mm stainless steel still and I could produce some reasonable neutral.

Over the 2 years, I learned a lot and got inspiration from https://homedistiller.org/ , r/firewater ,still-it and many more. I created and tested many 22mm still designs, I learned how to improve the efficiency and quality. The 22mm is such an ideal hobby size that I even stopped using my 50mm still.

After I posted to the homedistiller forum about my small still, I was doing a write up on how I built it when inspiration struck like lightning - Wind the thin refux column into a spiral so it would fit in a coffee machine sized enclosure.

Since then I have been working frantically to commercialize it as a product and the result is amazing - I still cannot believe what I have made and I hope if you do buy one you will find it just as amazing.

- Lafras