Brandy

As the story goes, brandy got its start through the attempted inventiveness of a Dutch trader. He wanted to ship wine back to Holland, but there were two different problems he was facing. First, was that wine didn’t necessarily travel well, the other was that those large casks of wine took up a lot of room. He had heard of a method by which water could be extracted from a more complex liquid, and so he thought this might be the key to his problem. He could “concentrate” the wine by removing the water, it would thus take up less room, and perhaps travel better as well. Once unpacked in Holland, he could simply add water to it, and Voila! Reconstituted wine!

As you might expect, the “reconstituted wine” really didn’t take off, but the concentrated product on the other hand did catch the fancy of some, and thus “Brandy” was released to the world. The name “Brandy” in fact comes from the Dutch phrase “brandewijn”, which literally translates to “burnt wine”.

In modern days, “brandy” is a distilled product made from any fruit. While normally grapes, apple brandy is also very popular (as in AppleJack from the US, or Calvados from the Normandy region of France). Pear, Cherry, Peach, and a variety of other fruits are also used around the world for various types of brandy.

“Eau-de-vie” is also a term that can be used to refer to brandy, although the literal translation of eau-de-vie is “water of life”, which is the same root term for both Whiskey and Vodka.

Brandy however hasn’t always just been used to refer to fruit spirits. Clear up until the 1800’s the term could be used to describe any spirit, even gin could have been referred to as a “brandy”.

Many beginners will get confused between Brandy and Cognac, and may not even have a clue about Armagnac. It’s easy to keep track of however by simply realizing that Brandy is the “overall” term, and that Cognac and Armagnac are simply brandies made from those specific regions of France.

It can also be confusing to keep the various designations that you might see on brandies straight. VS, VSO, VSOP, XO, and various others, are all things that you may see on the labels. These initials simply stand for “Very”, “Special”, “Old”, “Pale”, and “eXtra”. These are then combined to attempt to indicate the quality of the brandy within the bottle. I recommend that you don’t get too caught up with theses initials. After all, these are classifications that are being applied to a French product, and they are in English, so that should give you a hint as to their value. The only thing to pay attention to is the different labeling within a single brand. It can be assumed that one brand will categorize their brandies as VS, VSO, VSOP, and XO as they increase in perceived quality. You can, however, easily find one brand’s VSO which will be better than another brands XO.

One of the more popular cocktails that uses brandy is the “Sidecar”, which is made from just brandy, Cointreau, and lemon juice. Brandy is also popular to drink after dinner all by itself. You will usually want to tend towards the higher end brandies for sipping.

When drinking brandy neat, many people often get confused as to what type of glass to use. The most obvious choice is the very familiar “balloon” style of glassware (also known as a “Brandy Snifter“). Unfortunately this really isn’t the best way to appreciate a fine brandy. Its large bowl and narrow chimney concentrate things far too much for my liking.

And don’t you even dare think about one of those Brandy Warmers. I recall in my early drinking days I would order a warmed brandy, thinking that this was the classy thing to do, only to assail my nasal cavities with the burn of the vapors coming off the brandy. But I kept at it, since I thought this was the proper way to do it. Then I realized the folly of my ways.

A far better glass to use is one with a medium sized bowl, and just a slight flair at the lip. Riedel makes a very nice one as part of their “Vinum” series.

I also have a particular set of glasses that I find work wonderfully for sipping brandy (see picture), even though technically it is a whiskey glass. I in fact use these any time I am sipping a spirit “neat”, and have yet to find another glass that I feel works as well.