I've added yet another spirit to my "As Good As It Gets" list, which is short but excellent.
Dupont Calvados Vielle Reserve du Pays d'Auge is spectacular. If you've never had Calvados, start with this one. And if you don't like this one, you'll never like Calvados.
Pull quote:
"Dupont Calvados is magic, the magic of ancient alembic distillation, where the very soul of the fruit, the essence, the spirit of life (eau-de-vie) is captured in a bottle. I know of no other spirit that can so perfectly evoke the senses and the intellect simultaneously as Calvados, and Dupont does that as well as any, and better than most.
Fermented for six months, double distilled, then aged in oak for at least five years (with no more than 25% new oak), the Dupont Vieille Reserve is the color of old gold with the mingled aromas of fresh apples, fresh-cut grass, and delicate vanilla spice, transitioning to a rich, rounded baked apple in the mouth, then progressing to pastry spices and butter wrapped around mellow fruit in the finish. Concentrated, intense, never harsh or astringent, the Dupont is excellent and profound, with an arc of flavors rarely found in a single spirit. It matters not whether you serve it as an aperitif, a traditional ‘trou Normand’ in the midst of a meal, for cooking, as a sorbet or granite, or as a digestif after a sumptuous meal; it rewards at any occasion. This Calvados will astonish you."
The full article:
http://www.examiner.com/article/as-good ... le-reserve