Fruit Spirit Production from Coffee Cherries—Process Analysis and Sensory Evaluation

Coffee fruit production is an important agricultural sector in more than 70 tropical countries. However, the production of fruit spirits based on coffee fruits has not been investigated to date. This study evaluated, for the first time, its fermentation and distillation performance, ethanol yield and sensorial attributes. A selected yeast strain (Saccharomyces cerevisiae L.) fermented coffee cherry mash within five days and produced ethanol concentrations of 31.0 g/L. The mash was distilled and distillate fractions were categorized for heads/hearts/tails by sensory evaluation, resulting in an ethanol mass ratio of 1.0:4.2:0.8 with a total yield of 1.8% (w/w) ethanol based on coffee cherry mash. Analysis of fermentative volatiles indicated comparatively high methanol contents of 26 ± 4 g/L ethanol in the hearts fraction. Sensory evaluation of the hearts fraction resulted in 15 spirit specific descriptors, with vegetal and nutty indicating the most important terms to describe the perception of coffee cherry spirit. The results suggested that there is a high potential to introduce a fruit spirit based on coffee fruits.