Knowing your main base liquors in cocktails - Brandy - 3 of 6

Posted by Plenty Flenjo

April 17, 2008

First we covered Gin and Rum. Our third base liquor is Brandy. Brandy is distilled wine, i.e. brandy comes from grapes and can be produced anywhere in the world where grapes are grown. Some of the best brandies in the world are made right here in the USA, France and Greece.

American manufacturers usually start out with distilled grape wine that’s close to 170 proof - and they bring this value down to around 102 by adding water. Then the product is aged in white oak barrels, and caramel is added to increase the color. Brandy must be aged a minimum of two years, but is more commonly aged from three to eight.

Brandy may also be produced from wine made of other fruits beside grapes. You can have cherry brandy, apple brandy (very popular), blackberry brandy etc. If it’s a fruit, you can make brandy from it. Then you also have fruit flavored brandies, which differ from fruit brandies in that the former is flavored with the stated fruit in the bottle.

Cognac is nothing but fine, french brandy. However not all brandy is cognac. Huh?

Well cognac is grape brandy that is produced and manufactured in the Cognac region of France. It has to be for it to be considered cognac according to federal guidelines. The village of Cognac (this sounds like somewhere I’d definitely want to visit) is surrounded by seven grape growing regions which are:

Grande Champagne
Petite Champagne
Borderies
Fin Bois
Bon Bois
Bois Ordinaries
Bois Communs

A minimum of 51% of the grapes must come from the Grande and Petite vineyards. The remaining 49% or less can come from the other five regions. When the cognac is made solely from the grape grown in the Grande and Petite regions it is labeled as “Fine Champagne Cognac.”

And if you’ve ever wondered what the heck all those letters stand for after the cognac name - David Embury in his book, the Fine Art of Mixing Drinks writes:

E extra or especial
F fine
M mellow
O old
P pale
S superior
V very
X extra

VS/VSP (very superior, also known as three-star) is usually aged the youngest at two years on average. Industry average is four to five.

VSOP (very superior old pale) and VO (very old) are aged a minimum of four years. Industry average is 10 - 15 years.