10/13/2023 0 Comments Applejack bourbonBoth consisted only of apples, and nothing more. Before 1968, legally, applejack and apple brandy were synonymous. The Lairds started producing lighter blended products that could compete with vodka and gin, and they established a new standard for blended apple brandy with the government’s help. Whiskey and rum entered the picture, and the pomaceous potables fell out of favor.įast forward to the mid-twentieth century, when applejack’s legal definition was changed. In the kind of economic system I can get behind, it was even used as currency, specifically for paying road crews, yielding the nickname “Jersey lightning.” But the popularity of this apple-based spirit declined over time.Īs grain alcohol became cheaper and easier to produce with the help of metal stills, increased access to clean water, and pasteurization, cider and applejack began to be displaced. In its heyday, applejack was easy to produce because it didn’t require heat to distill. And Abe Lincoln, before entering politics, served applejack in his Springfield saloon. Other historical figures also embraced the spirit: John Chapman-or as you probably know him, Johnny Appleseed-helped bring applejack to the western frontier by cultivating apple orchards from which the spirit would be made. Generations later, Laird & Company is still going strong it’s still the top applejack producer in the US, producing almost all of the country’s applejack. Their products were well-received, and they famously shared their recipe with George Washington, who used it on the apples in his own orchards in the mid-eighteenth century. His great grandson followed in his footsteps, and established the family business in Scobeyville, NJ, in 1780 this is the oldest licensed distillery in the country. In 1698, settler William Laird began to distill apple spirits to produce apple brandy. NJ-based Laird & Company was the first commercial distillery to embrace this technique. “Jacking” is also known as freeze distillation, fractional freezing, and evaporative distilling, but those terms don’t really roll off the tongue in the same way. This process of making cider even stronger through the periodic removal of its water content was called “jacking”-hence the name of the resultant spirit. The lower-ABV cider produced in the fall was left outside to freeze overnight during the winter, allowing unfrozen alcohol to be separated from the ice in a process that would up the cider’s alcohol content. Hard cider was the most popular alcoholic drink in the colonies, and with some experimentation and extra help from Mother Nature, it was turned into a more concentrated spirit for the first time in the late seventeenth century. I’m talking about America’s earliest spirit.Ĭolonial settlers looked to easy-to-grow apples from their orchards for their original homemade booze because northeast climatic conditions weren’t so good for rye, barley, or corn. No, I’m not confused, and I haven’t mistyped the name of the cereal for kids who eat what they like. I’m personally into the coziness of the season and everything the dropping temps are traditionally associated with, but between apple cider and pumpkin spice lattes, seeing a lot of the same admittedly has me craving something less generic, but still fall-friendly. Lately, my Instagram feed’s been filled with all things autumnal: Halloween costumes, multi-hued landscapes, and, yeah, a whole lot of apple picking.
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