Laird's Applejack

Old bottle still lingering on the booze shelves from a blissful time of yore when a $30 bottle constituted a luxury good. Haha, what have esoteric pursuits done to me? Started daydreaming about brandies so pulled this for a little baseline reference. Quite thin, light, and decidedly one-note, but captures the pleasantly quintessential magic of apple, if a little subdued - a bit sweet, crisp, tart, and bitter. I will have to swallow some prejudices agains NGA (65% of the blend)... this is nothing like a rotgut mixto tequila. There is flat out nothing harsh here, no “cheap vodka” burn. I’ve forgiven much more expensive whiskies for worse offenses. Simple, pleasant enough, and just fine for the money. In short, you could do much worse.

I tried this neat at room temperature. On this nose, Laird's Applejack reminds me a bit of dark rum, tinged with the tart fruitiness of Granny Smith. It tastes like undersweetened apple pie filling: tart and zingy, with strong notes of vanilla and cinnamon, and finishing with a lingering peppery crispness. It retains some echoes of the cherry booziness of traditional brandy, and also the tarry backnote of molasses that I've detected in rum--which could be offensive if it were too strong, but it's not overbearing here. This wouldn't be my go-to sipper, but it's a welcome on a dark and cool evening.

Very sour and a lot more like wine than I’d expected. Tiny bitter notes like you find in sour grapes too. An interesting drink but I don’t think I prefer it to a good cider. I understand this means I’ll need to have my birth certificate edited to reflect this as having this opinion on Applejack means I am legally no longer a New Jersite.

Took a while for me to pick up on the apple notes… first, I got woody vibes, and it had the character more of whisky than of brandy. But upon returning to it, there is an apple essence in there, but it’s subtle and very dry and removed from any acidity and quite dry, doesn’t quite pack much of an apple punch.

A classic as far as apple brandy goes. It’s easy going, smooth, just enough charred wood sugars to keep it interesting neat but not so lofty that you can’t mix it half and half with ginger beer and drown in it without the fear of guilt or disappointing any of your highbrowed whiskey elitist friends.

I don't really get any apple from this at all. Not bad as a brandy. But I was expecting an apple flavor, and I was disappointed. Smooth and easy to sip, slight oak barrel aged flavor. Really tastes similar to a whiskey.