What is Apple Brandy?

Brandy is a distilled spirit that is made from fermented fruit juice.  Brandy can essentially be made of any fruit that can ferment and produce alcohol.  Apple brandy, you guessed it, is brandy that is made from fermented apple juice (cider).  

The simple way of explaining fermentation is, when yeast is added to a liquid with sugar and the yeast turns the sugar into alcohol. Once the juice has turned into alcohol you have wine! That process can take up to 4 weeks and there are ways to check the specific gravity of the alcohol to see when the liquid is ready. Once the wine is ready you can either transfer it to oak barrels to age it, or you can distill it!

Distilling is when you heat up the liquid in a sealed apparatus so the alcohol turns into vapor, but not the other content in the liquid.  As the almost pure alcohol vapor rises it will go through a type of column (depending on the method) and when it reaches to the top of the column it will be cooled and the vapor turns back into a liquid and goes down into either the column again or into the container.   After the process is complete the finished product goes into a barrel to age and mature. 

The aging process is what gives the spirits such as brandy, bourbon, and scotch their color! All spirits are clear when they come out of the distillation system!The aging process can differ from person to person and is often used to change the taste properties of the spirit.

Want to know more? Ask us!

Cheers,

Matt Poe