I’ve been poring over it, re-creating its wares since. This Christmas, I got a 1930s-era cocktail menu from Gluck’s Restaurant on Royal Street in New Orleans, and applejack was all over the menu. In cocktails, applejack is the superior donor, like whiskey with a little something extra. Like VSOP brandy as compared to Tennessee whiskey, it’s all about application. The difference between Calvados and applejack is a matter of personal taste. Instead of bourbon’s maple and oak flavors, with applejack you catch soft tones of apple, like walking past a giant apple tree on a fall day. However, applejack’s sweetness is perceived as opposed to actual, a lot like the taste you get from Jack Daniel’s. Applejack producers use eating apples, resulting in a sweeter, less subtle spirit-which is why blending the fruit brandy with regular spirits makes sense. Calvados distillers use primarily cider apples, dry and bitter, and the spirit they produce makes a better candidate for the snifter. In comparison, Calvados, the French apple brandy, contains only spirits derived from cider. ![]() Just before aging the apple brandy in barrels, distillers now cut it with neutral grain spirits (aka vodka) to a strength of around 40 percent alcohol. In fact, applejack-even Laird’s-is rarely 100 percent apple brandy anymore. ![]() Spirits distilled from fruit beverages are more rare these days because they cost considerably more to produce than grain-based spirits. It’s easy to play with and easier to drink.Īpplejack is a brandy made from fermented cider. But with the popularity of pre-Prohibition-era cocktails on the rise, Laird’s Applejack should be everywhere. The company produces less than half the apple brandy it did a century ago, and has made up the difference by diversifying with other liquors and imported beverages. (Honest.) Before there was bourbon, there was applejack, but just like American hard cider, Laird’s-and applejack in general-fell off the map. George Washington loved it so much, he asked for and was gifted with the recipe. Never heard of it? Laird’s was United States licensed distillery No. Below you'll find a list of our expert's picks for the best apple brandies to drink right now.Laird’s Applejack may be the closest thing we have to a national beverage. Whether you like the more "elegant and complex" European style or prefer the approachable American one, there's an apple brandy out there for you. "Generally speaking, American apple brandies tend to be sweeter and more vanilla-forward because of the use of charred, new American oak, leading to a faster extraction of the oak sugars versus toasted European oak barrels, which have more tannins and spice," explains Flavien Desoblin, owner of New York's The Brandy Library and Copper and Oak. ![]() "A lot of American brandies are made with sweet eating apples-Golden Delicious, Macoun, Gala," says Robert Krueger, task force head bartender at JF Restaurants, "whereas a mix of bitter, sour, and other apples are used for distilling Calvados," the classic Normandy brandy.Īnother distinction is the oak. There are notable differences between New and Old World approaches. ![]() And as America's oldest distilled spirit, it was before the 17th century that apples were being run through stills on this side of the Atlantic. The first mention of it is from 1553 in Normandy, France. Made by distilling cider, apple brandy has nearly as long a history in America as it does in Europe.
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