Brandy

"Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men, but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy." Either Samuel Johnson's classic 18th Century dictum no longer applies, or the fact that cognac consumption has tripled in this country during the past 10 years suggests that heroes have proliferated of late at an unparalleled rate. In any case, Dr. Johnson was on the right track to this extent: brandy taken neat is in itself heroic. There is something about brandy's finesse that caresses the senses and even the palm of your warming hand. Although after-coffee brandy outshines almost any flavor or aroma that has gone before it, it isn't necessary to sate your palate with a formal 12-course dinner and six wines in order to test the survival power of a great brandy. Actually, the fine old elixir becomes an even more impressive finale for the modern casserole dinner, the shell steak party or the informal buffet.

Brandy is distilled wine. Those who passed Chem. I may recall that alcohol has a lower boiling point than water and that when you heat wine in a still, the vapors which rise first and are later condensed become eau de vie. The first raw spirits in Europe trickling out of the medieval alembics were properly used for treating battle wounds rather than drinking. How they evolved into what we now know as brandy is explained in a number of well-aged, well-blended myths.

One story concerns a Dutch sea captain who had been shipping wine from France to Holland and was rowing in the Charente River near the area which now produces cognac. He dropped his hat into the water, fished it out and noticed that it was twice as heavy. Why not extract the water from his vinous cargo, he reasoned, save a fortune in shipping costs and then later restore the water to the wine? He arranged to have the wine distilled, only to discover, upon tasting it, a new kind of Dutch courage so stunning that he couldn't possibly think of restoring the water to his brandewijn (Dutch for burnt wine).

Or perhaps you prefer this legend: In England during the 16th Century, importers often received wine from the same area of France. It didn't travel well and was frequently spoiled upon arrival at the English docks. To salvage their investment, they distilled the wine into brandy wine, a product which Chaucer had long before identified as the "water of immortality. "It was a reasonable name because the powerful distillate, unlike wine, seemed to live on and on for years without spoiling.

Italian specialists in drinking mythology easily explain how brandy came to be aged in the wood. An alchemist in the 15th Century stored his aqua vitae in a cellar barrel. To keep it out of the hands of mercenary soldiers about to plunder his village, he buried the barrel of raw brandy. He died, however, before he could retrieve his trove. Years later, someone discovered the hidden grappa, half empty from evaporation, its raw white liquid now infused with a golden color and an indescribably noble flavor. So much for myth and mystique.

[recipe_title]Cognac[/recipe_title]

To describe cognac as distilled grape wine doesn't begin to explain its rich complex of flavors and noble breeding. You may derive some knowledge of certain brandies, even if you've never sipped them before, simply by scanning their labels. To gain some appreciation of the brandy called framboise, for instance, you need merely translate the French word, which means raspberry. Uncork the bottle and the distinct perfume of crushed raspberries rises softly to your nostrils. It's a clear, intense pleasure. But the flavor of cognac is far above and beyond the mere essence of the grape. In fact, it tastes no more like grape than bourbon tastes like corn. While you sip it, let us explain the inscriptions and annotations printed on the cognac label.

For example, there's the phrase Fine Champagne Cognac. It has no allusion whatever to champagne, the bubbly wine produced in an altogether different section of France. It so happens that the soil in which the cognac grapes flourish is a dour mixture of chalk and pebbles very much like the soil of the champagne country of the Marne. The word champagne also means an open stretch of land. On the cognac label the word is the tip-off to the fact that the grapes used came mainly from two of the finest open sections in the heart of the Cognac region, identified on the map as Grande Champagne or Petite Champagne. To be called Fine Champagne, cognac must contain grapes of which at least 60 percent are from the Grande Champagne.

Stars on cognac labels don't offer any really meaningful information to the buyer. Originally, a single star was used by vintners to mean a good vintage after a poor year. Two stars meant the bottle represented a succession of two good years, and so on. Nowadays, stars are the cognac maker's way of giving a subjective nod to what he considers fine quality. You're not likely to come across a well-known label with less than three stars, and often they're not used at all.

The most interesting thing about initials such as VO (very old) or VSOP (very superior old pale or particular) is that they represent English rather than French designations, obviously coined for the export trade. They can't always be taken as a strict code of quality. Bottles marked VSOP by a particular brandy shipper are usually finer spirits than a bottling from the same shipper without the initials. The VSOP signet as used by most of the outstanding shippers of cognac is usually an assurance that the brandy thus marked is largely composed of 20- to 25-year-old stock. VVSOP (very very superior old pale) is taken to mean stock about 40 years old.

The whole question of age is disposed of very simply by American import laws. No age is permitted to be printed on a bottle of (continued on page 124) Brandy (continued from page 82) cognac. The ruling is reasonable since all cognacs, including the greatest, are blends of different vintages transformed by different distillations of different ages. In mixing their artful blends, the cognac masters will choose one for mellowness, another for virility, another for finesse. Naturally, a superb cognac contains more liquid age than youth. One sagacious brandyman, when asked for the perfect age of a cognac, said it was the same as that for a woman (as opposed to a girl) – somewhere between 25 and 40. Brandy connoisseurs all agree that waters of immortality beyond the age of 50 begin to slip in quality. Stories claiming that a particular cognac was taken from Napoleon's foot locker are so much romantic nonsense. In the cellars of the old cognac houses, there may be a cask here and there containing cognac a hundred years old, but these are museum pieces from which most of the glory has literally gone with the years. Remember that cognac only ages in the wood, never in the bottle. When you buy cognac, the best advice is, use it. It will never attain a greater quality. Once opened, don't keep it too long. Frequent uncorking eventually will cause it to lose its original glow.

You may confidently forget all about stars, initials and other identification tags when you buy cognac bearing the labels of the old eminent brandy shippers. Generally speaking, price is one of the better yardsticks. Two others are equally dependable – your nose and mouth. In the last analysis, cognac can be properly assessed only as it trickles drop by drop down your throat. You should find yourself not only drinking it, but drinking to it.

Cognac, the brandy, is as unique as its old home, the countryside astride the Charente and Gironde rivers of which the little sleepy town of Cognac is the center. It's one of the few places left in France where wolves are still hunted. Sixty-four thousand grape growers, each with his little plot of land, toil under an eerily calm light in a land saturated with more sun than any other grape region in France. Pot stills, kept under government lock and key when the distilling season is over, are identical with those used three centuries ago. An odd freak of nature makes the otherwise unfriendly soil just about perfect for growing the tart grapes that turn into greenish wine and eventually aged brandy. Just as important as the grapes is the wood, from the nearby Limousin forest, in which the cognac is put to sleep. So heady are the vapors around the ancient brandy casks that workmen wear safety belts to keep them from tumbling into the vats. No railroad has ever been permitted to go into the Cognac region. The old distillers feared that a spark might accidentally cause the whole countryside to flambée, for – during its long hibernation – enough brandy is released as fumes into the air each day to provide cognac for all France.

[recipe_title]Non-cognac Grape Brandies[/recipe_title]

The one French brandy which one can talk about in the same breath with cognac is Armagnac. Distilled from the very same grapes grown in the Cognac region, it turns out to be a very different eau de vie. Its home is Gascony, birthplace of D'Artagnan, and it was, naturally, his favorite tipple. Not only is the earth of Gascony unlike that of the Cognac area, but the black oak used in making Gascon casks results in a different marriage of wood and spirits. The brandy of Armagnac, although in the pantheon of great spirits, is somewhat harder and more pungent than cognac but still has immense appeal to the brandy faithful in both France and the English-speaking countries. While D'Artagnan and his fellow musketeers used to praise it for its aphrodisiac qualities, modern natives of Gascony take a more sophisticated view of its effects. Instead of guzzling from oversize tankards, they like to sip their brandy after it's been swirled in warmed cups, just emptied of hot coffee, to rouse its heady dark aroma.

Marc, a common brandy in France, is distilled from the stems and skins of grapes. It has a woody, peasanty flavor. Although you aren't likely to find it at your corner liquor store, you can expect to meet it in many bistros if you travel in France. Other French grape brandies exported to this country are light-tasting and excellent for mixing purposes.

German brandies from the valley of the Rhine are superb distillates with a faintly sweet accent due to the fact that the Rhenish grapes are left on the vine longer than the French. German brandy is not only an after-dinner drink but enjoys a reputation – among the hearty – as a pre-breakfast potation for those in need of a vigorous pick-me-up. The German version of our prairie oyster is brandy poured over herring strips and egg yolks, and is eaten like a salad.

While the best-known ambassadors of Spain and Portugal are sherry and port, each country has always produced brandies as fortifiers for their wines. Spanish brandy is soft, dark and reminds you ever so slightly of the flavor of sherry. Portuguese brandy has its own bouquet and flavor strongly reminiscent of port wine. Metaxa from Greece, the richest tasting of all brandies, made from the sweet muscat grape, is almost a semi-liqueur.

It's not surprising to find many of the best metropolitan bars using California brandy as a mixer. California brandy never aspires to the subtleties of a cognac, but its easygoing personality seems to make it just right for stingers, sidecars and other brandy concoctions. It should be pointed out that the so-called fruit-flavored brandies bottled in this country are not true brandies but liqueurs with a brandy base.

In South America, a Peruvian brandy called Pisco is distilled from the muscat grape. Usually, it's made into a brandy sour, Pisco Punch. Aged in clay jars for a short period, it will give you a sensation somewhat akin to touching a third rail.

[recipe_title]White Fruit Brandies[/recipe_title]

Great brandies aren't all derived from the meat within a grapeskin. Superb distillations, extracted from other fruits, are generally white, fiery and unaged in order to preserve their straight fruity essence. Usually, not a trace of sugar is apparent. They're fine for flambés and make an exciting obbligato to a cheese platter, or fruit bowl and may be enjoyed with coffee, in coffee or after coffee. The most noted is kirsch or kirschwasser, a white brandy made of cherries and cherry pits. The Black Forest of Germany, Switzerland and Alsace are all homes of kirsch. Crushed plums are used to make Quetsch or Mirabelle in France and Slivovitz in Central Europe. The latter is an exception to the no-aging rule and develops a light golden aura after six or eight years in the wood. The lush flavor of red raspberries is drawn into framboise in France and Himbeergeist in Germany. One of the most delightful and most recent white brandies to appear in this country is Birnenbrand, a pear eau de vie from Switzerland. Through some sorcery its pear aroma is much richer than that of the fruit itself.

[recipe_title]Apple Brandy[/recipe_title]

Long before George Washington wrote to Samuel Laird asking for his apple brandy recipe, Americans were distilling what we now call applejack. Currently used as a cocktail mixer, it is famed particularly for its role in the jack rose. Its French counterpart, calvados, is a suave post-prandial potation. Applejack, although aged, keeps a vivid perfume of the apple. Calvados retains only the subtlest hint of the fruit, perhaps because of its longer aging.

[recipe_title]Mise En Scéne[/recipe_title]

Tasters in the old brandy houses of the Charente prefer a simple tulip-shaped glass rather than the brandy inhaler which, they feel, creates almost too intense an aroma. For professional bran-dymen, sniffing all day long, this may be true. But to those for whom the afterdinner brandy is the epitome of conviviality, the snifter seems the superior vessel for brandy contemplation. A single jigger of brandy should be poured into the glass and set into a lazy whirl while your hand coddles the glass to make the aroma grow. The practice of heating a brandy glass over a low flame isn't recommended; if overdone, it will damage the flavor of a fine brandy.

One of the coolest ways of presenting a white fruit brandy is to surround it with an ice pillar. First, place the brandy bottle in a large paper carton, fill the container two thirds with water, and place it in the freezer. Before pouring the brandy, tear off the carton, leaving the bottle covered with an impressive robe of ice.

Brandy is amazingly versatile. Highballs, on the rocks, alexanders, sidecars and stingers are all brandy classics. For more imaginative ways of unbending at your bar, try the following brandy concoctions. The word brandy in a drink recipe means any well-mixing grape brandy.

All recipes are for one drink.

[recipe_title]Brandy Melba[/recipe_title]

[drinkRecipe]1-1/2 ozs. brandy[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1/4 oz. peach liqueur[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1/4 oz. raspberry liqueur[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1/2 oz. lemon juice[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]2 dashes orange bitters[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1 slice brandied peach[/drinkRecipe]

Into a cocktail shaker with ice pour the brandy, peach liqueur, raspberry liqueur, lemon juice and orange bitters. Shake well and strain into prechilled cocktail glass. Add the brandied peach slice.

[recipe_title]Black Forest Cocktail[/recipe_title]

[drinkRecipe]1 oz. kirsch[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1/2 oz. brandy[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1 oz. grapefruit juice[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]3/4 teaspoon sugar[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]Brandied cherry[/drinkRecipe]

Put the kirsch, brandy, grapefruit juice and sugar in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into prechilled cocktail glass. Add the brandied cherry.

[recipe_title]Frozen Brandy Flip[/recipe_title]

[drinkRecipe]l-1/2 ozs. brandy[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1 oz. rum[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1 egg yolk[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1/2 oz. lemon juice[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1-1/2 teaspoons sugar[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1/2 cup cracked ice[/drinkRecipe]

Put all ingredients in electric blender. Blend 15 to 20 seconds.

[recipe_title]Brandy Cassis[/recipe_title]

[drinkRecipe]2 oz. brandy[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1/2 oz. crème de cassis[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]1 oz. lemon juice[/drinkRecipe]

[drinkRecipe]Lemon peel[/drinkRecipe]

In a cocktail shaker with ice pour the brandy, crème de cassis and lemon juice. Shake well. Strain into prechilled cocktail glass. Twist the lemon peel over the drink and drop it into the glass.

Whether you take your brandy neat or in a felicitously compounded mixed drink, you'll find nothing more conducive to after-dinner delectations and dialectics. A bottle of brandy's pervasive presence at a tête-à-tête will warmly disprove the ancient adage that three's a crowd.