Apple Brandies to Brighten Your Thanksgiving

This year we’re thankful for smooth sipping with these vibrant apple brandies.

Tamworth Garden and Boulard apple brandies, courtesy of Tony Sachs

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all — not so much because of its questionable backstory and its legacy of white-on-brown treachery, but because of the more benign things it represents. Home. Hearth. Badly cooked poultry that most people don’t want to eat the rest of the year. Political arguments with various misinformed family members. OK, I sort of get why Thanksgiving is purposely overlooked by so many of us each year as we leapfrog from Halloween directly to Christmas. But a holiday devoted to gluttony, watching football, and a parade featuring giant balloons of cartoon characters you probably haven’t heard of if you don’t have a child under 12 — that’s my kind of Thursday.

And this Thanksgiving may, paradoxically, be the best one in recent memory thanks to the worst year in recent memory. A whole lot of us, due to Covid-19, won’t be able to see our families for Turkey Day. And there goes one big reason to drink. But even if you don’t need liquid fortification to argue with your kin about AOC or Moscow Mitch, a good drink in hand always makes a meal that much better.

Branching out with booze

But what to drink? Good old American whiskey? Rum, the preferred libation of the early colonists? Cider? Beer? All of the above? Hey, why not!  I’ve certainly had my share of each of them over the many Thanksgivings in which I’ve partaken. But the last couple of years I’ve grown partial to apple brandy. It’s autumn in a glass, evoking all the clichés about the season — thick, cozy sweaters, leaves crunching underfoot, a warm fire on the first cold night of the season, you name it — with enough apple flavor to take you back to those bottles of Martinelli’s sparkling cider you used to drink as a kid, but with a decidedly adult (and potent) sheen.  This year, two apple brandies in particular are floating my boat, one from New England — the Thanksgiving equivalent of the North Pole — and one (actually a Calvados, which is… we’ll get to that) from France but with a decidedly American twist.

Tamworth Garden: bottling in bond

Tamworth Garden VSOP, courtesy of Tony Sachs

Bottling in bond is usually reserved for whiskey, but we’re starting to see it more across the spirits spectrum. For those not in the know, a bonded spirit has to be distilled at a single distillery in a single six-month distilling season; it has to be aged in a federally bonded warehouse for no less than four years; and it has to be bottled at 50% ABV. There are a few other bonded apple brandies out there, most notably Laird’s, but the best one I’ve tried is Tamworth Garden VSOP Apple Brandy (50% ABV, $80). Coincidentally, a brandy also needs to age for at least four years to qualify for VSOP (“Very Special Old Pale”) status, so this ticks both boxes.

Based in New Hampshire, Tamworth uses locally grown Cortland apples from one of the oldest active orchards in the country. It’s double-distilled Calvados style, in an alembic (pot) still. And it’s stunningly good, with a vibrant, fruity nose reminiscent of a cognac and a dry, tobacco-y finish that’s quite like a whiskey. In between, it coats the tongue with deep, velvety notes of succulent apple. Water isn’t necessary, but a few drops in your glass opens up the bouquet even more and brings up the tart notes somewhat. Personally, I prefer it without water. And while I don’t normally give a second thought to packaging, I absolutely love the simple elegance of both the bottle and the label. A great bottle makes you want to drink what’s inside even more, and this one does the trick.

Boulard VSOP: A digestif in French

So why, on this holiday that’s second only to Independence Day in its American-ness, would you want a French Calvados on the table alongside your stuffing and gravy?  Well, the French were right there alongside the Brits as the original usurpers of the native North Americans’ turf in the 17th and 18th centuries. They also fought alongside the colonists in the Revolutionary War, so that’s got to count for something. And this particular Calvados has an interesting connection to the States.

Boulard VSOP Rye Cask Finish, courtesy of Tony Sachs

But first, just to clarify, Calvados is to apple brandy what cognac is to grape-based brandy. Calvados can only be made in specific regions of Normandy, each of which comes with an AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée). Pays d’Auge is a small region in the center of Normandy which makes some of the world’s most sought-after Calvados, and it’s from this appellation that Boulard — which was awarded 2020’s Calvados of the Year at the New York International Spirits Competition — hails.

Boulard has been making Calvados for close to 200 years, but the brand’s elderly status doesn’t mean it’s immune to innovation. With their new 12-Barrel Collection, they’re issuing limited quantities of their VSOP and XO expressions finished in casks from America and Japan. The current release, VSOP Rye Cask Finish (40% ABV, $60), of which about 3,000 bottles are available Stateside, is a blend aged at least four years and finished for an undisclosed time in, you guessed it, all-American ex-rye white oak barrels. Not a combination that immediately springs to mind, but in this case, it works beautifully. The nose, redolent of apples, caramel and honey, comes on strong as soon as the bottle is opened. On the palate it’s smooth and round up front, full of concentrated apple goodness, but as it glides towards the back of the tongue it picks up intensity and spice from the rye casks, finishing quite dry and tingly.

Both these brandies would make a perfect post-prandial digestif this Thanksgiving. If you don’t want to wait that long, I recommend enjoying them pre-meal in an Old Fashioned, subbing maple syrup for simple syrup if you’ve got some of the good stuff handy (I’m partial to Runamok’s bourbon barrel-finished syrup myself). But whenever you pop these babies open, either (or both, especially if you’re eating with the fam via Zoom) of them will help your Thanksgiving a little more festive. And they’ll keep you warm all winter, too.