Friendly Casual Spirit (Brandy) Poll

Whiling away some time and thinking about stuff, so I thought I'd ask a casual question of brandy---as in, who has had which different types or brands of brandy?

Nothing specific in mind, just trying to capture an idea of how prevalent brandy is (especially on a board with wine geeks).

You can check off each one that qualifies for you.

And as always, discussions and comments, on brandy in general or specific brandies, is welcome. Also on whether you prefer brandy or whiskey (fruit versus grain).

I almost never have brandy anymore, but was able to check I think 12 based on prior experiences.
Among the ones I haven't tried, I don't even know what Germain-Robin, Clear Creek, or Palinka even are.

I almost never have brandy anymore, but was able to check I think 12 based on prior experiences.
Among the ones I haven't tried, I don't even know what Germain-Robin, Clear Creek, or Palinka even are.

Germain-Robin: Cognac guy who took an alembic still to Mendocion and started to make some incredibly good pot-still brandies in the Anderson Valley; they are equal to fine cognacs and calvados and eau-de-vie, although they maintain a very distinct identity of their own.

Clear Creek: founded years ago by a guy from an orchardist family in the Portland area who traveled to France and tasted some brandies. Became the godfather of small micro-distillers in the US and makes some of the best eau-de-vie, clear and aged fruit brandies, especially aged applebrandy, fruit liqueurs and grappi...along with, curiously enough a kick-ass more-or-less Scotch style single malt whisky. Just sold out to another, larger firm but he still works at the distillery.

Palinka is traditional brandy from Hungary and other surrounding states. Basically made out of apricots (Barack Palinka) but can be made out of mixed fruits. It's usually, here in the States, a clear or lightly-aged style of brandy.

Thanks for playing, Dale.

OH: The reason Metaxa is not technically a brandy is that it has a brandy base, but has some grape must mixed into it, along with some spices, so it's in that vague category of "Specialty Spirits". It is incredibly good, mind you, and I encourage everyone to try it, but it's technically flavored brandy.

[Robin Garr]

Listed grappa but left out marc? Julian Thomas, a regular on the CompuServe forum, back in the day, always kept a Marc de Champagne around. Smelled like garbage, tasted great. Especially the second shot.

[Jenise]

Would marc be an 'other brandy'?

Listed grappa but left out marc? Julian Thomas, a regular on the CompuServe forum, back in the day, always kept a Marc de Champagne around. Smelled like garbage, tasted great. Especially the second shot.

You right: should have included marc. At the very least made it a grappa/marc, but probably in a different category because I think it is different.

My favorite marc is Marc de Bourgogne (aka Marc d'egrappe) from Belin. Probably because it was the first one I had, but also because it's a good marc. Best I've had, there's a tiny little place in Romaneche-Thorin---one old guy, a moustache pete---that specializes in eau-de-vie based fruit liqueurs and marc, and the marc can be aged in barrels for 12 or more years. Splendid stuff. But they don't export.

[Jenise]

Oops, see Robin basically said/asked the same thing.

[David M. Bueker]

Surprised at how many I had tried, given that I did not give 2 cents about spirits until 2 years ago.

[Robin Garr]

Would marc be an 'other brandy'?

It just seemed to me that if grappa is listed, marc should be listed. Same thing, different countries.

[Robin Garr]

Oops, see Robin basically said/asked the same thing.

Oh, I thought you were asking me. This is a case where using the "Quote" feature might have helped.

OH: The reason Metaxa is not technically a brandy is that it has a brandy base, but has some grape must mixed into it, along with some spices, so it's in that vague category of "Specialty Spirits". It is incredibly good, mind you, and I encourage everyone to try it, but it's technically flavored brandy.

So closer to brandy than say Pineau de Charentes (sp?) which is closer to a fortified wine I guess.

OH: The reason Metaxa is not technically a brandy is that it has a brandy base, but has some grape must mixed into it, along with some spices, so it's in that vague category of "Specialty Spirits". It is incredibly good, mind you, and I encourage everyone to try it, but it's technically flavored brandy.

So closer to brandy than say Pineau de Charentes (sp?) which is closer to a fortified wine I guess.

Yep, very much closer to brandy than Pineau de Charentes. PdC and it's cousin Floc de Gascogne from Armagnac are essentially "mutage" style, must flavored with eau-de-vie, not in any way oak aged brandy. And yeah, PdC and Floc, along with vermouths and such, are fortified (mutage) to kill off the yeasts, so between 16--20% abv.

I had tasted all of them! Not 100 percent on the Clear Creek, though. The one I am thinking about was very Alsace in style and made from Douglas Fir, could that have been CC, Hoke?

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

I had tasted all of them! Not 100 percent on the Clear Creek, though. The one I am thinking about was very Alsace in style and made from Douglas Fir, could that have been CC, Hoke?

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

Yep, that was Clear Creek. Very popular, I think as an oddity. Local bartenders often use it sparingly as an adjunct in some cocktails. The CC aged apple brandy and pear eau-de-vie are generally considered the best.

So congrats: you are a diligent spiritualist!

Thanks! It clearly sounds better than "a hopeless old soak"!

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

I had tasted all of them! Not 100 percent on the Clear Creek, though. The one I am thinking about was very Alsace in style and made from Douglas Fir, could that have been CC, Hoke?

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

That Douglas Fir Eau-de-Vie is quite unusual - I tried it once when one of my regular wine retailers opened up a bottle around the holidays several years ago.

Thanks all for playing and putting your votes in. Appreciate it.

The results of the entirely non-scientific poll is pretty much what I expected, and my general takeaway is

1. Cognac is still the icon of brandy. No surprise there. It pleases me that not only are people drinking cognac, those that are are evidently interested enough in exploring it to try some of the better/longer aged grades. This is good.

2. Armagnac, again as expected, is less familiar to consumers---possibly because it is poorly distributed and has very little representation in the market. Armagnac drinkers pretty much have to pursue good armagnac; they are less likely to just stumble across it on the shelves. And we're talking about simply "Armagnac", not the good stuff, which is or can be spectacular. Shame, that.

3. The really top quality/artisanal US brandies just haven't captured the imagination of the general public. Still a fairly specialized thing. If people have had E&J or Korbel or others of that ilk and think that is what American brandy is, they're missing out.

4. A little surprised that Brandy de Jerez was familiar with many drinkers. That's good.

5. And for all the harrumphing and grousing about Grappa (and yes, Robin, marc), an awful lot of people seem to have tried it. It may well be they tried it just once, though, if the got the rough stuff. God knows if all I knew about Grappa was a bottle of Stock, I wouldn't be looking for any more.

6. Oops, skipped over Calvados/apple brandy. Wish we had more drinkers of both, cause the stuff can be so damned good. Great for drinking; great for cooking too. All we have to do, I think, is get the tradtion of 'au trou Normand" in effect and suddenly everyone would be drinking Calvados (and there's some really good apple brandy in the US: specifically the aforementioned Clear Creek but on a larger scale, Laird's. The Applejack is the regular stuff; the really astounding brandy is the Laird's 100 Proof Bonded. It's magnificent.

Once again, thanks to all.

The Laird's Bonded is a difficult one to find around here. The Applejack is not too uncommon, but no one seems to stock the bonded version. Next trip to the Bay Area....

The Laird's Bonded is a difficult one to find around here. The Applejack is not too uncommon, but no one seems to stock the bonded version. Next trip to the Bay Area....

Seriously worth it.

Hoke wrote;
5. And for all the harrumphing and grousing about Grappa (and yes, Robin, marc), an awful lot of people seem to have tried it. It may well be they tried it just once, though, if the got the rough stuff. God knows if all I knew about Grappa was a bottle of Stock, I wouldn't be looking for any more.

This brings back a NEW YORK TIMES article (from 1997) written by R. W. Apple Jr. –“ Grappa, Firey Friend of Peasants, Now Glows with Quieter Flame”


http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/31/dinin ... flame.html

Salute

Hoke wrote;
5. And for all the harrumphing and grousing about Grappa (and yes, Robin, marc), an awful lot of people seem to have tried it. It may well be they tried it just once, though, if the got the rough stuff. God knows if all I knew about Grappa was a bottle of Stock, I wouldn't be looking for any more.

This brings back a NEW YORK TIMES article (from 1997) written by R. W. Apple Jr. –“ Grappa, Firey Friend of Peasants, Now Glows with Quieter Flame”


http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/31/dinin ... flame.html

Salute

Ayuh. Late 80s/early 90s was when the ultra-high end grappas started coming out in droves, usually in fancy and eccentric hand blown crystal bottles. Prior to that it was mostly the Stock swill. Whether they deserve it or not I credit the Nonino family with leading the charge on upping the status of grappa...featuring fresh pomace with immediate processing, selecting single vineyard sites, making monovitigno bottllings, etc. The Noninos were impressive (the girls of Nonino were pretty impressive too, but that's another story). Now, of course, we have the luxury of Jacopo Poli and others, but it wasn't the case back then. About the only time I would see grappa in the way back was on the East Coast, maybe Chicago, and then only in Italian restaurants.

I dabbled at bit, and picked up a few here and there, but wasn't really turned on by grappa---until one trip I received two bottles, one from the Barone Ricasoli, made primarily for the family from the old vine sangiovese around the foot of the castello, and one from Fontanfredda, a monomvitigno from their Barolo vineyards in Serralunga. First, the difference between the two was rather impressive, grape tipicity was obvious in each (if you were familiar with the grapes) and they, especially the Castello di Brolio, reached heights of aromatic complexity I'd not seen before in grappa. It wasn't just fire warter, and it most certainly didn't taste like kerosene; there were some really seductive aromatics too---I credit it to the sangiovese, you know. high acids generally make good brandies.

Whenever I wanted to go crossways with people who scoffed at grappa automatically, I'd usually pull out the Brolio. Heh. Usually won the argument.

I once heard my grandfather say " C'è una differenza tra brandy e la grappa, il brandy è costituito dal vino delle uve, la grappa è costituito dall'anima dell'uva". Asking for a translation I understood this to mean, “there is a difference between brandy and grappa, brandy is made from the wine of the grapes, grappa is made from the soul of the grapes”.

If your goal is to produce “great” grappa and you obtain the “freshest” pomace from the greatest winemakers of your region, the pomace material from a great wine vintage might not necessarily be the “raw material” for “great” grappa. (In a great wine vintage the winemaker will certainly extract all the goodness the grapes have to offer, in red wine production this means possibly extending maceration times both pre fermentation, fermentation, and possibly post fermentation, thus giving the grappa producer less of a soul to work with). A good to moderate wine vintage (where the winemaker might now pay more attention to maceration or now limit it) will leave a lot more soul for the grappa producer to work with.

Salute