Galicia is the only Spanish region recognized by the EU as producing a re.-ion-specific spirit, "Galician mare brandy". For efficient maintenance of the corresponding quality requirements, it is preferable for the experience of stillmasters to be backed up by computer-assisted process control methods. This article describes a rule-based intelligent system for monitoring and control of one of the several different distillation processes that can be used to produce Galician mare brandy. This control and monitoring system improves the final quality of the product, since it helps to increase the efficiency and also to reduce the time needed for process completion. The system is currently in use at a commercial-distillery, and proved to be robust, improving the distillation times and correctly solving different anomalous situations. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.