I grew up spending a lot of time at an apple orchard because I raised sheep in a barn that the family who owned the orchard also owned. But, my sheep interaction was mostly in the spring and summer, so I had to come up with other excuses to hang around in the fall and actually eat the apples.
For a long time, Cortlands were my favorite. Their firm, bright flesh and high sugar content was perfect for a quick energy boost when running through the orchard and attempting to climb trees. My tastes have since evolved a bit, and I got really into the (quite new) Pink Lady that grows so well in Washington. Shortly after we moved there I had one right off the tree at a small orchard in Naches and it might be on the list of best things I’ve ever eaten.
It’s ironic that I’m writing about apples only after we left Washington for Arizona, which is certainly not famous for growing the fruit (the big football rivalry is for the Territorial Cup here, significantly less fun than the Apple Cup…). But the miracles of modern cold chain mean we get just as many fresh-crop apples here as we did when we lived a few hours from the orchards, and I shipped down a bottle of Pommeau that I’ve been waiting to break into for a long time.
A Short History of Bad Drinks
Apples and cocktails haven’t traditionally gotten along well. The most (in)famous is, without a doubt, the Appletini. This bastardization of the Martini (I don’t mean that negatively in general, but it went poorly here) substitutes the vermouth for apple pucker, which is supposed to taste like a sour apple but tastes like pure candy. I think there’s a good drink hiding in this idea, but I haven’t found it yet.
As ubiquitous as the Appletini seemed to anyone who grew up on Scrubs or loved The Social Network, it’s actually a very new drink created in 1996 Hollywood that seems to have always been some kind of punchline.
The only other place I can think where apples are generally included in popular drinking culture are when they’re dumped in sangria, which can be delicious but isn’t really highlighting the fruit at all. The obvious exception here is cider, but I’ll get to that later; in general, it’s hard to find apples featured as an ingredient in good drinks, and there’s no good reason for that.
Note: the rest of this blog is a quick survey of apple booze categories and not one of my big deep dives (yet).
Applejack, Calvados, and Pommeau
I got into “apple liquor” once I got to Seattle and thought “if whiskey is basically distilled beer, why don’t you distill cider?” and then quickly realized we’ve answered that question for many hundreds of years and I was just ignorant. Turns out both America and France have a proud history with apple booze, but I’ll start with the US of A.
Applejack was THE American booze until Bourbon came along (and it’s never recovered). Begun in Jersey by a Scotsman-turned-colonist, this particular apple brandy has until very recently been distilled only by his family’s company. It’s distinguished from better-known, higher-price apple brandys by having absolutely no relation to cider apples. Applejack was traditionally distilled by the winter in the Northeast using the apples that you could otherwise eat off the trees in the region. It’s now distilled with evaporation like just about everything else, but it still uses “normal” consumer-grade apples rather than cider-specific varieties which makes it quite a bit sweeter and more tart at the same time.
Calvados is the French Applejack; still apple brandy, but they’re fussy about the fruit (from the varietals to where they’re grown) and have been making it for at least 100 more years. The name is newer than that (the Calvados region was created in one of the later French Revolutions), but the process has mostly been the same. It was never freeze distilled, but it can be double-distilled to improve purity based on the apples, and it has to be aged in oak for at least 2 years. It can also be made with pears, but never a mix of pears and apples. I don’t have a great brandy palate, and I’ve never really been able to distinguish Calvados from a sweeter Cognac; I’m working on it.
Pommeau, unlike both Applejack and Calvados, is not actually distilled at all. It’s just apple brandy (usually Calvados) mixed in with a pure apple juice and then aged as a mixture. As such, it’s technically a fortified wine like so many of my other favorite cocktail ingredients. I discovered Pommeau on beautiful San Juan Island at the San Juan Island Distillery, and I still have a bottle from that trip that I just opened for this blog.
Cider Both Hard and Soft
Hard and soft cider is really a uniquely-American distinction. Growing up, I loved fresh soft cider that was made by the gallon from the orchard that I spent so much time in with fresh juice and some spices. When I realized there was cider with booze in it, I thought this must be adults just adding booze to the cider they used to love. Nope, not even close.
Cider, properly, is fermented apple juice. Usually, that juice is from apples that you wouldn’t be able to drink the juice of otherwise. In almost every way it mirrors beer production once the apples are completely ground down, but usually ends up with a lot more sugar in the finished product as it ferments for a lot longer.
It’s popular in the U.K. and the rest of the Commonwealth as a result, and for some reason the independent streak in the US led us to not get into this category properly for many generations. That’s unfortunate, because the annual heirloom cider from Seattle Cider Company was consistently one of the best things I would drink each year.
A Quick Autumnal Apple Cocktail
A great way to easily incorporate some apple flavor into a cocktail is to replace the fortified wine you would be using with Pommeau. Alternatively, turn up the booze and replace any liqueur with the same. I love how apple pairs with a strong rye whiskey, so I did this with a Brooklyn, removing the Maraschino to create the Orchard Street. I also threw in a few additional dashes of bitters: Fee Brothers Black Walnut and Addition Sage to increase the spice and nut profiles in the drink.
This isn’t overwhelmingly apple-y at all, but you definitely taste the Pommeau. The crisp notes from the white vermouth play nicely with the sweet apple profile, and the bitters add some depth to the sweetness that really helps round out the drink. It’s a quick, seasonal drink that’s sure to make you want to put on a sweater and play in some leaves.
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