Applejack liquors holiday hours license#

Rating **** An excellent appley variant on the Manhattan. Rating***1/2 On the sweeter side, but everything in check. The ultimate demonstration of how apple brandy can come alive in a cocktail. Rating ***** An amazing cocktail sprang forth from these basic, but quality ingredients. Rating*** More of a showcase of sloe gin, the subject of a future post, no doubt.ġ 1/2 oz applejack or bonded apple brandy Rating* Not enough tanginess to go with the Swedish Punsch. Stir ingredients with ice in a mixing glass and strain into a chilled cocktail glass Rating*** (out of 5) A good cocktail with a nice grapefruit zing. Shake ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled cocktail glass The cocktails choices were taken mostly from CocktailDB and were a small sampling based on drinks that sounded particularly tasty or made use of ingredients of current interest. I highly recommend it as the first choice in all of the cocktails below. When mixed in a cocktail, the Apple Bond really comes alive with an effusion of complex apple flavors and slightly more heat. The Apple Bond has less of the fresh apple flavor, but has a lot more distilled apple character along with more heat. Due to the 40 proof, it is fairly light, somewhat smooth with a nice appley finish. The AppleJack has a distinct fresh apple aroma and flavor, as advertised. I picked up a bottle of both recently for the purposes of experimentation - first on their own, then in some cocktails. Today, Laird’s AppleJack is not straight apple brandy, but a 35% apple brandy base which is combined with neutral grain spirits along with a 'hint of apple flavor and aroma' which is conspicuously obfuscatory.Īccording to the company a 750 ML bottle of Lairds AppleJack contains 6 lbs of apples and a bottle of Lairds Apple Bond contains 20 lbs of apples. Entries appear in Washington’s diary in the 1760’s regarding his production of 'cyder spirits'. Historical records show that, prior to 1760, George Washington wrote to the Laird family requesting their recipe for producing Applejack, which the Laird family gladly supplied.

Applejack liquors holiday hours license#

The Laird family, producers of Applejack and several versions of an aged Apple Brandy started commercial production in 1780 and apparently received the first US distillery license in the small community of Scobeyville, NJ.Īpplejack was popular with the early colonists, who were leery of drinking water they believed it to carry disease and were convinced that the strong spririts promoted good health.Īccording to Laird's website, Robert Laird was a Revolutionary War soldier serving under George Washington, and the Laird family supplied the troops with Applejack. So, next time you’re feeling like you could run the country, remember, you aren’t going to do it right if you don’t have a bottle of Laird’s Applejack (or two) handy.Applejack is an original American spirit, dating back to the times of Washington. For each barrel of apple brandy produced, 7,000 pounds of apples-a mix Red Delicious, Gala, Golden Delicious, Winesap and Granny Smith sourced from the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains-are used. Last year, the company produced around 60,000 proof gallons of apple brandy. While the product is distilled in Virginia (and has been since the 1970s), Laird’s is headquartered in New Jersey, just down the road from where William Laird originally set up shop. In total, the company currently produces five apple spirits at their Virginia facility: Laird’s Blended Applejack (40% ABV, $21.99), Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy (50% ABV, $29.99), Laird’s 7 ½ Years Old Apple Brandy (40% ABV, $31.99), Laird’s 12 Year Old Rare Apple Brandy (44% ABV, $65), and their latest release Laird’s Jersey Lightning Unaged Apple Brandy (50% ABV, $27.99) which came out around two years ago. in 1967 to Bill Clinton, who served Laird’s at various events during his presidency. In between Washington and Obama, many other presidents have enjoyed the applejack-from Abraham Lincoln who served it in a saloon he ran before becoming president to Lyndon Johnson who gave Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin a bottle at a summit in Glassboro, N.J. Currently, ninth generation Lisa Laird Dunn sits at Vice President and World Ambassador of the company. It was William’s grandson, Robert, who opened the first commercial distillery and helped the Revolutionary War efforts by supplying the troops with applejack. The company’s distilling roots, which has been run consistently by nine different generations of the Laird family since 1780, actually stretch back almost a century more to 1698 when William Laird landed in Monmouth County, New Jersey, from Scotland and began distilling apples.