Applejack is a sweet alcoholic beverage made from apples, originally derived from apple brandy. It is made through freeze or evaporative distillation, and Laird & Company is the oldest operating distillery in the US, producing 95% of the applejack sold in the US market.
Applejack is a typically sweet alcoholic beverage made from apples. The drink was originally derived from apple brandy – probably the French version, called calvados. In modern times, however, the drink is essentially distilled or hard cider concentrate. This distilled beverage is believed to have been consumed since at least the 17th century, although it wasn’t commercially produced and distributed until the 1780s. Commercially produced applejack is often made by diluting apple brandy with grain alcohol.
It can be done in several ways. The most popular methods would be freeze distillation — fractional freezing or more accurately dubbed fractional crystallization — or evaporative distillation. During evaporative distillation, the different components of applejack – the juices, water and air – are separated from each other. To be clear, the distillation method is a separation process rather than a chemical process. Freeze distillation, however, is the traditional colonial method of making the apple spirit and thus known as the preferred method. During this process,
In the modern United States applejack is primarily produced by Laird & Company, a distillery in New Jersey. William Laird – said to be an earlier scotch maker – began brewing the drink for his own use in 1698 due to the plethora of apple trees in the area. While the earliest actual records of the Laird family’s alcoholic apple production date back to the 1780s, distilled beverages were produced throughout the 1700s by William Laird’s family.
Today, Laird & Company is the oldest operating distillery in the U.S. For centuries, it has been in business, first operating as the Colts Neck Inn. The inn sold alcohol to travelers and locals, and the inn’s applejack was also supplied to troops during the Revolutionary War. The business survived a fire that burned the distillery to the ground in 1849, and when it reopened across town in 1851, the drink began to be produced commercially.
During Prohibition, Laird’s Distillery was forced to shift gears and survive by making apple juice and applesauce. Illegal distilleries still produced a booted copycat version of the drink throughout the era. Finally during Prohibition, Laird & Company was licensed to sell hard cider for medicinal purposes. At the end of Prohibition, Laird & Company purchased the illegal distilleries for the purpose of mass-producing applejack as a high-quality, great-tasting product. In the 1990s, the company claimed to produce about 95 percent of the applejack sold in the US market.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
