Tag Archives: applejack

Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy

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Well!  It’s been nearly a month since my last post – far too long.  I’ve been busy with things like organizing my bourbon collection (finally) and being sick with a pesky summer flu – still have it in fact, so today’s post will be structured a little differently than usual since I’m not drinking at the moment.  However, I haven’t neglected my brown spirits all together, in fact along with some help I’ve made some headway with a bottle of Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy.

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I’ve had Laird’s before this, but only their Applejack, which is merely their brandy diulted with neutral spirit – really a disappointing venture in all.  So I was looking forward to sampling their good stuff.  Before going any deeper into this post though, I have to note that the logo for this particular brandy is wonderful, the kind of thing apple brandy distillers should get tattooed on their forearms.

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I’ve written a couple times about apple brandies before, with American Fruits and Clear Creek, and the two seemed to represent a range from young & bright to more mature & mellow – as we’d expect comparing any liquor aged a few months to on aged a few years – but each also represented different approaches to the craft: Clear Creek is openly drawing inspiration from the French traditions around Calvados, while American Fruits seemed to be in more of an experimental mode and at the beginning of crafting what may or may not be a lasting line.

Laird’s is perhaps the standard when it comes to American apple brandies and it employs a process very different from those other two products.  Instead of aging in limousin oak as Clear Creek does, they use charred American oak and age it six to eight years before bottling.  In other words, they follow the same aging process as bourbon.

The result is a brandy that is, at times, more bourbon-like.  It’s a little brighter than Clear Creek’s, but far more apply.  Since I’m not drinking it at the moment (much to my dismay), I can’t go into finer-tuned notes, but I can say that at its full 100 proof, it can be a bit much to take.  I’ve found adding a bit of water brings out the cider qualities, and adding an ice cube or two makes it into a fine casual dram.

All in all, I would recommend giving this a try – just avoid their Applejack.

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Clear Creek’s Eau de Vie de Pomme

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eaudeviedepommeI’m off to France for the next week, so that means two things for this blog: first, it means there won’t be an entry next week – unless I’m able to find a worthy American liquor over there and get into the blogging spirit, I suppose; and second, it means that in my anticipatory mood I’ve picked up a bottle of Clear Creek’s Calvados-inspired apple brandy to write about.

I first found out about Clear Creek’s apple brandy in the (perhaps not defunct?) New York Times blog Proof, where CC’s Steve McCarthy contributed a few pieces.  I was never able to really get into that blog, which seemed to at once celebrate, nostalgize, and demonize alcohol – a confused premise at best.  However, Steve’s pieces gave me a glimpse into the motivations and processes behind a respected American distiller, especially his emphasis on leveraging a region’s local produce in production.

Now let’s get down to some tasting.

Stats:

– $30-40

– Made by Clear Creek

– 80 proof

Presentation:

Clear Creek’s Eau de Vie de Pomme makes no apologies for its Francophilia.  Everything from the shape of the bottle, to the label coloring, to the script imitates the Calvados style.  With that in mind, I enjoy the crisp lines and simple alignment of the text and border on the label, allowing the flowing script of the French title to stand out without cluttering.

There is not too much information on the bottle itself except the age statement (8 years) and that it has been aged in French oak.

Tasting:

EdVdP is light brown in color – a testament to its eight year aging – but is not as dark as what you might expect from some brandies (though certainly darker than the last apple brandy I wrote about here).  The scent is strongly of cider and quite sweet.  There might be a touch of the wood to the nose as well, but it was hard to pick out from the cidery notes.

On tasting, EdVdP is bright and apply and lingers on the tongue with a tingling citrus and a bit of that French oak.  Despite the apple and citrus, this was not as sweet as the scent would have you believe.

Over all:

Perhaps I’m not as adept at navigating the complexities of brandies just yet, or perhaps I simply shouldn’t expect as much from them in that manner as I should from bourbon.  Either way, while Clear Creek’s Eau de Vie de Pomme is thoroughly enjoyable and I will visit the bottle again, I wasn’t able to draw as much character out of it as I would normally look for.

What I can say, however, is that through the lens of my admittedly limited experience with brandy and Calvados in particular, Clear Creek seems to have done a good job in imitating the qualities of the French liquor.  In the end, it could cetainly stand on its own legs without the comparison.

American Fruits Apple Brandy

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Just when you thought you were reading a blog devoted to whiskey, I pull out a brandy: an American spirit to no lesser degree however.  In fact, brandies – specifically apple brandies – have probably been in production in the US longer than grain whiskey of any type has.  Colonists in New England distilled hard cider into applejack using the freeze distillation method, resulting in a harsh beverage full of fusel alcohols.

Fortunately Warwick Valley Wine Company (NY) does not rely on freeze distillation to make their apple brandy.  Rather they use a copper pot still to refine their spirit, much to the drinkers’ advantage.  They also age it for one year in New York oak.  I’m a little doubtful that such a young bottling will be very interesting, but I am glad to see another product come out of the Northeast.

Stats:

– apx $25

– Made by Warwick Valley Wine Co.

– 80 proof

Presentation:

American Fruits Apple Brandy comes in a tall, thin bottle with a lon neck and a bright red plastic cork-handle on the top.  Instead of a paper label WVWC frosts the the clear glass, with the exception of the outline of an apple in the center.  The front is sparsely decorated with this apple serving as the central adornment.  Other than that and the product information, it shows only the name in two simple fonts.

The back sports the image of Warwick Valley itself and a paragraph relating the friendships at the core of the WVWC.  It comes across as overly sentimental in the way that American wineries can be, but it does get the point across that these guys are a little new to the field of distilled spirits.

Also important to note is that nowhere on the bottle do they put an age statement.  Sure, one year is nothing to trumpet, but youth affects liquor to a gret degree and it would probably be helpful to many prospective buyers to see the age right on the bottle.

Tasting:

American Fruits Apple Brandy smells an awful lot like you’d expect  young apple brandy to smell like: recently distilled alcohol and apples, cider specifically.  It hasn’t spent enough time in the barrel to come into its own or pick up anything significant from the wood.

On tasting the impression is much the same.  As with any spirit so young, the immediate impression is that of the alcohol.  That said, it is not overly harsh and rather smooth compared to something like Georgia Moon.  Perhaps those 12 months did some good after all.  Following this initial sensation, it settles into a pleasant, clean, apply finish that is surprisingly long.

Over all:

This is a good start for the WVWC, but clearly their apple brandy is too young to have anything approaching complexity or depth.  It will be interesting to watch as they come out with an older variety – perhaps a six or four year?  These might begin to reveal their full potential.