Fruit Brandy
While the brandy we typically think about is made from grapes, the spirit can really be made from any type of fruit, berry, or not. Kirsch, for example, is brandy made from cherries, and slivovitz is brandy made from plums. Brandy can be made from everything from coconuts to juniper berries, but the most common type of brandy (aside from grape brandies) is that made from apples (and sometimes pears). In the U.S., apple brandy or applejack is a popular libation dating back to Colonial days — but the king of all fruit brandies can be found in France. Here, Calvados is distilled and aged in methods similar to Cognac, with various legal definitions and grade designations describing Calvados growing regions and the number of years spent in barrel.
Top Fruit Brandy Posts:
Domaine Dupont Calvados – Fine Reserve, Vieille Reserve, Hors d’Age
Arkansas Black Applejack 21 Years Old
Spirit of India Feni
Pur Spirits Pear Williams, Raspberry Vodka, and Bierbrand
Mulberry Club Fruit Brandies
Chip Tate entered the American whiskey conversation in 2008 with the founding of Balcones Distilling in Waco, Texas. Operating from a repurposed welding shop, Tate engineered and assembled his own copper stills, setting the stage for a hands on approach that quickly separated his work from established producers. At a moment when small scale distilling…
Bourbon is often hailed as America’s native spirit. That title gained official weight in 1964, when Congress declared bourbon a “distinctive product of the United States,” placing it on the same footing as Scotch whisky and granting it formal protection in international trade. Only whiskey crafted on American soil could bear the name. Yet for…
Bhakta Spirits, known for its rare whiskeys and Armagnacs, is moving into another spirits category, and this one’s a curious choice: Calvados, aka French apple brandy. Its inaugural bottling of Bhakta 1989 Pays d’Auge Calvados is its first-ever single varietal Calvados offering. Only 3 barrels are being turned out. Some details: Distilled in Normandy’s prestigious…
Founded in 2017 by Ilio Mavlyanov, Sauvage Distillery is located in the quiet hills of Charlotteville, New York — right in the heart of apple country. Upstate New York is world-renowned for its apples, thanks to a cool climate, fertile soils, and a long growing season that make it an orchard paradise. Sauvage embraces this…
We’ve barely scratched the surface on Oregon-based Clear Creek Distillery’s many brandies and liqueurs, but today we’re taking a look at a pear of them. Ha, see what I did there? Clear Creek’s unaged Pear Brandy was actually the first spirit we tasted from the distillery way back in 2009, but we figured it was…
For its next trick, the House of Tamworth, known for its evocative gins and crazily flavored whiskeys, is turning to the apple for inspiration. Lilith Apple Brandy is “named for and inspired by Lilith, the fabled figure known as the first woman ever created and the first wife of Adam – an equal to man,…
In a modern landscape filled with a seemingly endless supply of large and craft distillers, the title of “master distiller” is a bit murky. We all know who has definitely earned the title of master distiller, but the bigger question is regarding those who claim the title with a questionable or unaccomplished resume. We don’t…
New Hampshire’s Tamworth Distilling, the company behind graveyard tree-sap infused rye, crab whiskey, and a famed venison-flavored whiskey, is back with yet another novelty, this time a brandy, infused with the flavor of smoked trout. Or, more accurately, a trout distillate flavored with apple brandy. No typo. The 2023 Food & Wine Drinks Innovator of…
Best known for their highly-aged brandy, Raj Bhakta’s eponymous spirits brand is making moves into other categories, including whiskey. They released an Armagnac-cask finished bourbon earlier in 2023, and they’ve also dabbled in rum. Now, they’re mixing up something different altogether: a blended spirits that’s 60 percent rye whiskey, 30 percent Calvados, and 10 percent…
We’ve written about Belle de Brillet twice before, first as a standard Poire Williams and more recently as a “Pear & Cognac Liqueur.” Now owner Rémy Cointreau has reformulated and relaunched the brand once again, billing it as a “Pear Liqueur with Cognac.” Reportedly revamped “from bottle to liquid,” it is currently a blend of…