Delord 25 year Armagnac. Wow, this is surprisingly my first ever bottle talk on the wonderful, beautiful spirit of Armagnac. Where to start… Armagnac is a French grape brandy, similar to Cognac but made in a different region using different grapes and production processes. This bottle is one of the…
Sibona Grappa Reserva, Port Cask Finished. Grappa has quite the reputation as a…harsh and rough spirit…for many who have encountered it on vacation in Italy. It’s associated with the older generation of Italians, and is generally consumed post-meals as a digestif. Grappa is a grape-based spirit that’s made from pomace,…
Calvados Domfrontais. This was my birthday bottle treat to myself, and it was SO delicious I literally drank like a quarter of the bottle in one day (oops). The French really know how to do their brandies right. Outside of well-known Cognac and the more rustic Armagnac (both made from…
Kissing a Stranger Brandy from Belgrove Distillery. HOLY CRAP, guys. I’m sure some may have had those crazy wild nights guided by the name of this bottle, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt as disturbed as I did when I found out what was in this bottle. This is the…
Nonino Grappa. While some may be familiar with the Nonino Amaro Quintessentia, it’s a bit less noted that it’s an amaro (Italian bittersweet liqueur) made from a base of grappa. And that the Nonino company has been a family business specializing in grappa since the late 1800s. While grappa is…
Brandy de Jerez. This is my first bottle of Brandy de Jerez, picked up at the Barcelona airport duty free shop…the perfect boozy souvenir for a trip to Spain, right? I spent an embarrassingly long time selecting a bottle, but finally settled on the Cardenal Mendoza Carta Real, a big…
Pisco. While recently seeking out my first bottle of pisco, I chatted with a bartender at the incredible Canon Seattle, who recommended Encanto, so here we are. Most widely known for its use in the Pisco Sour, pisco is a brandy distilled from fermented grape juice (aka wine) made in Peru…
Copper & Kings American Brandy. I’ve previously talked about all sorts of different brandies, from dry fruit brandies like Barack Pálinka to brandy liqueurs like Apricot liqueur to American applejack to European region-of-origin controlled Calvados and Cognac. But how about some good ole general “American brandy”? In this whole cocktail/craft beer&spirits…
Laird’s Applejack. Laird’s is the oldest licensed distillery of applejack, a truly American spirit deeply rooted in the appletree-abundant colonial northeast. During a time when clean water was limited, early colonists turned to hard beverages, which were safer for consumption (well, in some ways).Apples were abundant in the area and thus…
Zwack Pecsetes Barack Pálinka, aka Hungarian Apricot Brandy. This was one of my very first bottles of the non-standard stuff after starting out with my homebar. I saw a lot of recipes calling for “apricot brandy” and picked this up, not knowing much about it. Turns out, there are two…
Roger Groult Calvados Pays d’Auge. Calvados is a spirit you may not be familiar with, but should be! Calvados is an apple brandy (spirit distilled from apples, sometimes pears) from France that’s regulated by an appellation (which defines where the apples must be grown and the process for creating the spirit). The…
Remy Martin VSOP Cognac. I bought this in the early days of the homebar while searching for a cognac to fill the collection and admittedly haven’t ventured away (though I really want to get my hands on another bottle given how much I enjoy brandies!). Cognac is basically a grape-based…