Cocktails with Spanish brandy
Spanish brandy is a grape-wine brandy from Spain, almost always Brandy de Jerez, aged by the solera system in sherry-seasoned casks around Jerez de la Frontera.
ABV36–40%
Substitutes for Spanish brandy
Grape brandy aged in a sherry cask, so it is rounder and sweeter than the French style at the same age. A drier bottle needs a little syrup to sit where this one sat, and a stronger one needs less of it in the glass.
On the label
- Solera / Solera Reserva / Solera Gran Reserva
- The three aging grades in ascending order — Solera at least six months, Reserva at least a year, Gran Reserva at least three.
- PX / Oloroso
- The sherry the cask was seasoned with — Oloroso leaves nutty dryness, Pedro Ximénez (PX) sweetness, raisin and dark caramel.
Often confused with
Drier and stricter: no sherry cask, no solera. In a Sidecar the drink comes out cleaner and sharper, and the raisined sweetness a Spanish-brandy recipe counts on is gone — put it back with a barspoon of syrup.
