Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Apple Brandy Old Fashioned!
Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Apple Brandy Old Fashioned!
How you like dem apples?
Matthew Hooper
Oct 11, 2024
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If Ohio tasted good, it would taste like this.
Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender, and today I’ve got the absolute best fall cocktail ever for you. This is an easy, wonderful recipe — no day-long infusions, no weird ingredients, just the best liquor possible for a fall day, kissed with maple syrup and smoked cinnamon to make it better. Let’s make an Apple Brandy Old Fashioned. Here’s the recipe:
Apple Brandy Old Fashioned
2 ½ oz Watershed Apple Brandy (or Calvados, or local brandy)
½ oz maple syrup
1 dropperful Old Forester Smoked Cinnamon Bitters
Apple slice and burnt cinnamon stick
In a double old fashioned glass, add 1 large ice cube. Pour maple syrup and bitters to the glass. Add brandy. Stir 25-30 seconds, until the glass is chilled. Garnish with apple slice and cinnamon stick.
Living in Northeast Ohio has given me some perspective on ethnic fruit brandies. By “perspective,” I mean “sugar bomb, avoid at all costs.” I’ve tried Polish plum brandy, and … not so much. The sugar content is worse than Kahlua or Triple Sec, and the fruit flavor is faint at best. I’ve considered playing with it for a cocktail, but it’s hard to recommend something so overwhelmingly sweet.
Apple brandy is another matter. The French may have found the Platonic ideal of apple brandy in Calvados, one of the best apple spirits in the world. But I am in love with the local version of this spirit. Watershed Distillery is a lovely microdistillery in Columbus, Ohio. They make a delicious citrus gin, some pretty nice bourbon, and the only bottled nocino I’ve ever discovered. But one of the first things they made was an apple brandy, aged in charred oak barrels, and I’ve never tasted Ohio fall in a glass as clearly as I did when I tasted this spirit. The apple comes through crisp and clear; from the scent to the finish, you get all the humble complexity of a fresh McIntosh apple.
As good as this stuff is, it needs a few small touches to be at its best. Every spirit I have ever tasted needs a little water to expand and show off its flavors. The meltwater from a big chunk of ice is enough for this one. A little sugar cuts the burn of ethanol, and bitters round off the harsh edges of the spirit. There might be a better apple old fashioned out there, but I love this one the best.
Let’s talk ingredients:
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Ingredient shot. I will cry in my sleep over the loss of these bitters.
Watershed Apple Brandy: If you aren’t in the Midwest, finding this will be a challenge. Calvados, the epic French apple brandy, is more likely to be available, and a worthy substitute. Hunt locally. Look for bottles you might not try normally, just because you don’t know the brand name. Microdistilling is booming in America now. Find out what your local booze is like and support your neighbors. That said, you will get what you pay for — cheap apple brandy will get you “apple” brandy. Sour Pucker is one of these “apple” creations, colored and flavored like a Now and Later. If you’re fool enough to use that garbage, I will personally hunt you down and spank you with the flat of my rapier.
Maple syrup: Your choice of sugar in this glass is the biggest creative choice in the cocktail. I went with maple syrup because apples and maple play together so well. I’ve used brown sugar syrup with rich, oaky bourbon before; it would work well here. In the spring, we might want to revisit this drink with honey syrup and Angostura bitters as a “bitter herb” for a seder. Other choices might overwhelm the drink; I’ve got some nice nocino from Watershed in the cupboard, but it would turn the cocktail jet black and overwhelm the apple with black walnut flavors. Start small with your measure of syrup, you can always add more. Find your desired sweetness level. Ultimately, it’s your drink.
Old Forester Smoked Cinnamon Bitters: Sigh. I bought these well over a year ago. They’re lovely in this drink. They’re also sold by Brown Forman, the company that recently ended its DEI practices. I wish I could recommend buying these bitters. But I can’t. Use cocoa bitters as a substitute in the meantime and mark the calendar now. In December, we’ll be talking about making homemade bitters, including a copycat of OF’s Smoked Cinnamon Bitters, my own tiki bitters, and probably some other special ingredients for your bar.
Garnishes: A fresh apple slice reinforces the core flavors of this cocktail. Singeing a cinnamon stick adds smoke and spice to the drink, completing the experience.
In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below!
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