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   Brandy & Brandy Drinks found in House & Home  :  Food, Drink & Cooking  :  Drinks & Mixology A   A   A
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Brandy & Brandy Drinks
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Break out the snifters.
 
Nothing puts a night to bed like a fine glass of brandy—or gets a party rolling like a classic brandy cocktail. So prepare to add a touch of sophistication to your evenings with:
  • A brief history of brandy and the basics of how brandy is made
  • A rundown of different types of brandy, so you’ll know what you’re buying
  • Brandy cocktail recipes from the Four Seasons restaurant
 
 
 
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Brandy Basics

Brandy is a spirit made by distilling wine, as its original name implies—brandewijn (Dutch for “burnt wine”). Brandy can be made from grape wine, though many fruit brandies are distilled from wine made out of other fruits as well.

The finest brandies, such as the grape brandies cognac and armagnac and the apple-based brandy calvados, are best drunk neat (straight) from a snifter. Other brandies can be drunk neat or mixed with other ingredients in cocktails.

A Short History of Brandy

Little is known of brandy’s earliest origins. History shows that 15th-century Dutch traders, doing business with Spain when parts of the country were still under Muslim rule, adopted the Arab method for making medicinal wines from fruits: boiling, or “burning,” the distillate. Their incentive was partly economic—boiling the wine reduced its volume by half, which meant that the Dutch could pay lower tariffs when exporting their product to other countries. They then left it to merchants to reconstitute the wine with water.

Economics also led the Dutch to the Charentes region of France, which produced huge quantities of cheap wine in Cognac and other areas. The Dutch bought wine in bulk for conversion into brandewijn, and soon saved even more by building their own distilleries in Charentes. Over time, French distillers copied the Dutch and began to boil down wine as well.

At this point, brandewijn was drunk unaged. Distillers and merchants began to notice, however, that the wine gained color and lost much of its harshness when shipped in small wooden casks. Then, in the early 1700s, the War of Spanish Succession brought the brandewijn trade to a virtual standstill, and oak casks of the burnt wine had to be stored for as long as 12 years. When trade resumed, the aged wine was found to have a dark amber color and exceptional aroma and flavor—and modern brandy was born.

Before long, other European nations were manufacturing brandy distilled not only from grapes, but from other fruits as well. Production soon spread to the Americas, and by the late 1800s brandy was being produced worldwide.

How Brandy Is Made

Brandy is made from grape wine or wine made from other fruits. Transforming the wine into brandy is a three- step process:
  1. Distillation: The wine is heated to boiling in a columnar (continuous) still or traditional pot still. Once separated from the water vapors, the alcohol vapors condense into liquid form. This distillate is then distilled for a second time.
  2. Aging: The double-distilled spirit is aged in oak barrels. Over time, the barrels give brandy its dark gold hue and additional flavors. New oak barrels impart strong flavors and tannins, while old (previously used) oak barrels impart a bit of the flavor of the spirit they held before—often sherry or bourbon. Most brandies are aged for 3–15 years, though the finest brandies may be aged for 50 years or more.
  3. Blending and bottling: After aging, virtually all grape-based brandy is blended, or mixed with brandies of different vintages or growing zones. Brandy is usually bottled at 40% alcohol by volume (ABV), or 80 proof.
 
 
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