Laird's Archives - First Pour Cocktails

Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy

Posted on September 22, 2023September 20, 2023 by Nick

Although not widely available, Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy has a reputation for being excellent apple brandy. Unfortunately, it’s distribution isn’t available in all states, so until a friend was able to help me try a bottle I had always found the love for this brandy a mystery. So is it worth the hunt?

Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy

Distillate – 100% Apples
Proof – 100 (50%)
Age – Minimum 4 years
Cask – Oak
Bottled In Bond

Sight: Amontillado Sherry

Smell: Fresh sliced apples lace with vanilla and oak. The apple notes get a slight tint of baking spice and a lightly roasted character. It has elements of brown sugar and fruity candied apple. There’s a bit of floral in here too, and more than a little whiff of alcohol.

Sip: Bright floral apples and fresh sliced apple lead. The medium body gives forth a bit of vanilla and a hint of spice. The flavors are lean toward caramelizing apples in the oven, but without the sweetness. Oak comes in and there’s just a hint of the smell of the apple of the farm as flavor here too.

Savor: The ending leans into apples with a bit more skin and vanilla laced oak. The finish is short, and has a vaguely apple character.

Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy is little rough on the nose, but delivers a warm and well constructed apple flavor. The flavors aren’t super complicated or robust, but they are nicely orientated toward the apple orchard. The subtle floral notes go well against the more vanilla and oak undertones. This is a nice solid apple brandy that seems well suited for cocktails.

In Cocktails

In a Jack Rose it lends a fresh apple note to the lemon and pomegranate notes. It’s robust as a base, featuring the subtle oaky flavors and hints of vanilla behind all the fruitiness. While the depth could be deeper, it is very tasty. It works similarly as well in both a Honey Moon Cocktail and an Applejack Rabbit.

In Review – Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy

Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy is nicely constructed and works well in cocktails. Is it life altering? No, but the advantages that it has over Laird’s Blended Applejack are two fold. First, the proof helps to bring the flavors of the apples forward. Secondly, the lack of neutral grain spirits is evidence in a side by side. The result is a more apple orientated drink with none of the off flavors, while only being around $30. For these reasons, this is our new recommendation for an apple brandy when looking to make any cocktails.

Laird’s Blended Applejack

Posted on February 18, 2020September 10, 2023 by Nick

When the original settlers came to America, there wasn’t a lot of options to quench their thirst. Vineyards tended not to do well (thanks to climate and soil), barley and hops hadn’t been mastered in the new world, and imported spirits were wildly comparative when available. What was available though, was apples. Always the resourceful settlers, colonial American’s soon realized that apples could be frozen, leaving behind an unrefined but highly alcoholic residue. Soon after the discovery, a Scottish immigrant by the name of William Laird began refining the substance and aging it in oak to create an apple brandy. Enter Laird’s Blended Applejack.

Applejack was big in the United States for years, and resulted in the creation of several cocktails, notably the Jack Rose and Pink Lady. One of the things that first drew me to Applejack and the Jack Rose was the delightful book Boozehound by Jason Wilson. In it, Wilson describes the Jack Mauve (named due to the homemade grenadine on a Jack Rose), which left me hooked on the idea of homemade grenadine, lime, and applejack.

I only had one problem with finding all these things. I was flying every week and living out of a suitcase. If you want to torture yourself while flying, reading a book about obscure cocktail ingredients on an airplane. Nevertheless, I made a bee line for the liquor store and found a bottle of Laird’s Blended Applejack so I could make my own.

Laird’s Blended Applejack

Laird’s Blended Applejack is not straight applejack. Instead it’s blended with neutral grain spirits. This isn’t designed to be a straight sipping applejack. So how is Laird’s Blended Applejack?

Sight: An amber-brown hue in the glass.

Smell: The nose is full of apples with hints of caramel and oak. The apple notes range between cider like and freshly peeled. There’s a certain tartness as well.

Sip: The palate carries a smooth baked apple flavor that’s heavily influenced by oak notes and hints of vanilla and caramel. There’s a certain tea / tannic like note on the finish that pulls in additional cigar box like spicing. It also burns a bit.

Savor: The ending is more apple skin like and carries through oak and spice with a hint of bitterness.

The overall impression of Laird’s Blended Applejack is enjoyable and tasty, if unrefined. It’s far from perfect, but certainly more than serviceable for cocktails.

Laird’s Blended Applejack in Cocktails

Come fall and early winter, few spirits play as well with fresh apple as Laird’s Applejack. Unsurprisingly the apple notes tend to amplify, and work well as a canvas for warm sugars – like maple syrup or cinnamon simple. Due to this, it also plays well mixing with rum, and can cross the link into the tiki world – pulling on allspice and ginger to move in a baked pie direction. From a classic perspective, it’s the default in the Jack Rose and Pink Lady cocktails.

In a Jack Rose it gives a warm background to the fruitiness of the grenadine and the brightness of the lime. The subtly apple like flavor gives a bit of savor. The biggest downside is it gets lost in the cocktail.

Final Thoughts:

Applejack is a great choice when you’d like to impart a subtle hint of apple into a brandy or cognac based cocktail. While Laird’s Blended Applejack is one of the most basic on the market, it also works quite well in cocktails. The apple carries through along with some of the warm baking spice notes. Thanks to it’s aging in oak, it also can act like a whiskey or rum. While it’s not the smoothest, and you won’t be dying to drink it straight, but it will work well when you try to tiki or blend up a Jack Rose.