Dear Curious Readers, Let’s avoid any boring intro and go straight to the fact: Brandy (from brandywine, derived from Dutch brandewijn, gebrande wijn or "burned wine") is a spirit produced by distilling wine. ARE GRAPPA? CALVADOS? PISCO? COGNAC ALL BRANDIES? |
Why burnt wine? Because the wine is heated (burnt) during the distillation process. The story goes that Dutch shipmaster began the practice by concentrating wine for shipment, intending to add water upon reaching home port, but the concentrated beverage immediately seduced everyone. And no more water was added back. Is sherry a brandy? No. Some english speaking individuals also use the term brandy for sherry or port but those liquors are actually not even spirits but fortified wines. A fortified wines is a wine to which pure alcohol has been added (to make it simple). The wine itself is not distilled. |
If you need more details, here are the EU and US definition, as found in Wikipedia. Because precision matters.
In the European Union, there are regulations that require products labelled as brandy, except "grain brandy", to be produced exclusively from the distillation or redistillation of grape-based wine or grape-based "wine fortified for distillation" and aged a minimum of six months in oak. Alcoholic beverages imported to the EU from the United States or other non-EU states can be sold within the European Union using labels that refer to them as "fruit brandy" or "pomace brandy", but such a label cannot be used in the EU for products produced in an EU-member state.
In the US, brandy that has been produced from other than grape wine must be labelled with a clarifying description of the type of brandy production such as "peach brandy", "fruit brandy", "dried fruit brandy", or "pomace brandy", and brandy that has not been aged in oak for at least two years must be labelled as "immature"
Within the European Union, the German term Weinbrand is legally equivalent to the English term "brandy", but outside the German-speaking countries it is particularly used to designate brandy from Austria and Germany.
Pictures by Michael Mroczek and William Bout (in that order)
Wikipedia (for the last box)
And internal knowledge for the rest.
tags
All
101 CLASSES
ABSINTHE
AGAVE BASED SPIRITS
AMSTERDAM
ANIS
APPLE BASED BRANDIES
Apple Cider
Applejack
AQUAVIT
ARAK
ARMAGNAC
ASIAN SPIRITS
BAIJIU
BAR CONVENT
BARS
BARTENDING MYSTERIES
BERLIN
BITTERS
BOOKS
BRANDY
BROOKLYN
BRUSSELS
CALVADOS
COGNAC
COLLABORATION
CRAFT
CRAFT SPIRITS
DESTILLE BERLIN
DESTILLE VENTURES
DISTILLATION
DISTILLERY TOUR
EAUX DE VIE
FINE
FOOD
FRUIT BASED SPIRITS
FUN FACTS
GENEVER
GIN
GRAIN BASED SPIRITS
GRAPE BASED SPIRITS
GRAPPA
GUSANO
HERBS AND SPICES BASED SPIRITS
HISTORY
INFOGRAPHICS
INSTAGRAM
INTERVIEWS
JUNIPER
Juniper Based Spirit
JUNIPER BASED SPIRITS
KNOWLEDGE CENTER
KORN
LESSON
LIQUEURS
LONDON
MARC
MEZCAL
NEUROLOGY
NON ALC
OBSTBRAND
OFF TRACKS
ONLINE
OPINION
OUZO
PALINKA
PARIS
PASTIS
PECHUGA
PISCO
PLANT BASED SPIRITS
PODCASTS
PRESS REVIEW
PROWEIN
PULQUE
RAKI
RHUM
RUM
SCANDINAVIA
SENSES
SHOWS AND FAIRS
SHRUBS
SOTOL
SPIRITSFULLY X FICTIONS
SUGARCANE
SUSTAINABILITY
TASTINGS
TEQUILA
TIPS TO LEARN
TOURS
TRAVELS
TRENDS
UNDERSTANDING ALCOHOL
VERMOUTH
VODKA
WHISKY
WSET
YOU TUBE
ZERO PROOF