Early tails are clearly nasty. It's a nastiness that sticks to your tongue and nose In a vaguely nauseating way, at least for me. So once I thought I was into tails I collected another couple fractions to be sure, and then turned the still up and collected the remainder of the tails in a larger jar, down to about 30% ABV coming off the still.

But here's my question. I thought I noticed the smell changing as the tails were coming off, and took a taste pretty deep in the run, and it wasn't bad. In fact, it was quite pleasant, with some interesting flavors. It seems like maybe there's a period in early tails when it's got that nastiness, but then maybe that can clear up later and the deeper tails might have some interesting pleasant stuff? They did have a bit of a thicker oily feel to them, so there's clearly fusel oils in there too.

My hearts are going to be about 75% ABV once I've combined the fractions - My low wines were 35% - so I'll have to dilute those down anyway. Would it make sense to keep collecting fractions through the tails, get through that nasty stuff, and use some of those pleasant and interesting later tails fractions instead of water to proof my heart's down? Are the fusel oils a problem if I do that?