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It's the yeast strains. Some can survive higher alcohol concentrations than others.

For instance this[1] one can achieve up to 25% under right conditions.

[1] https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-single?id=146&type=YEAST&sty...

No yeast can digest starches afaik. It's why you need a mashing phase to turn starches into simpler sugars when brewing beer.

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I've heard that can be pretty harsh, though I'd be curious to know how it might fair with a little bit of aging, say 6-12 months. It requires a bit more handholding of the batch as well, but there are turbo yeasts that will get to ~14% in 24-48 hours.

I've also come across "triple distilled" turbo yeast that's supposed to be less harsh but not as high ABV.

Though there are cultures of yeast and bacteria where the bacteria breaks down the starches to sugars which in turn gets eaten by the yeast.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q%C5%AB

That's aspergillus oryzae, which is a mold though.

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