Cocktails with Apple brandy
Apple brandy is a fruit brandy distilled from fermented apple juice or cider, unaged or oak-aged.
ABV40–50%Calvados and most American apple brandy sit at 40%; bottled-in-bond is exactly 50%.
Substitutes for Apple brandy
Apple and oak are the two halves, and bottles nearby carry them in different proportions — some are apple spirit cut with neutral, some are years in a cask. Read the label for how much of each you are getting, because the word on the front does not settle it.
On the label
- "applejack"
- American apple brandy. Historically concentrated by freezing cider and pulling off the ice; today it is properly distilled, and a bottle carrying the word is usually brandy cut with neutral spirit.
- "blended applejack"
- A US legal category holding as little as 20% apple brandy, the rest neutral spirit — so it drinks lighter and less appley than the straight kind.
- "bottled-in-bond" (Laird’s, 100 proof)
- One distillery, one season, at least four years under federal supervision, exactly 50% ABV — the fullest, all-apple choice for a Jack Rose.
