At Dabbler Depot this week, we’re celebrating the end of the apple harvest with our Apples to Apples sale! All week long, when you buy at least one apple-based spirit, you can take 30% off any one cider product!

Apple-based spirits are a global phenomenon, springing up nearly anywhere that apples are cultivated, and run the gamut from top-shelf French Calvados to locally made apple liqueurs. Get ready, because we’re about to introduce you to all that apple spirits have to offer in this blog post. How do you like them apples? 

Calvados

The French are the kings of high-end brandy, and with all of the fine apple-growing land present in the country’s northern regions, it makes sense that the Francs produce apple brandy so fancy that it has its own name: Calvados!

Calvados is distilled from cider made from heritage cider apple varieties and is aged for at least two years in oak casks, with finer varieties being aged for longer. Calvados producers almost always blend older spirits with younger ones for flavor, and the age statement on the bottle refers to the youngest spirit present. Calvados follows the French brandy tradition of quality grading, with VS being the base, followed by VSOP and XO for the highest quality spirits.

Generally, younger Calvados is “hotter” but also features more fresh fruit flavors, while calvados that has been aged for longer features more barrel notes and mellowed-out flavors. While you can sub out Calvados in your favorite brandy cocktail, this spirit is often best enjoyed slowly and straight-up from a snifter.

Pommeau

We’re staying in Northern France for the next stop on our tasting tour by checking out the fortified wine of the apple world: Pommeau!

Pommeau is made by mixing a two-to-one ratio of unfermented apple juice and young calvados and then barrel-aging that mixture for roughly two years. The resulting beverage usually clocks in around 18% ABV and features some cider characteristics as well as vanilla, caramel, and oak.

Pommeau is a great sub for your favorite dessert wine, and makes an excellent pairing with tangy cheeses, rich pastries, and more! 

American Apple Brandy

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Before bourbon and whiskey came to be recognized as our nation’s signature spirits, apple brandy was the locally-produced spirit of choice for Eighteenth-century Americans. Not as strictly controlled as Calvados, American apple brandy can be produced from non-cider apples and can feature the inclusion of neutral grain spirits.

J. Carver’s Apple Brandy is an excellent example of the stuff, made with an eye for celebrating local ingredients by utilizing locally-grown apples as part of their distillation process. Since it’s a bit less highfalutin than its French counterpart, we love using American apple brandy in cocktails, especially to fortify hot ciders or add an autumnal flavor to a hot toddy. 

Apple Liqueur

Sweet and sipable, apple liqueurs are the ideal apple-based spirit to introduce to folks who might be more averse to the harder stuff. Sometimes called schnapps, apple liqueurs are usually no more than 30% ABV and are often quite sweet thanks to the addition of sugars during production. 

Many apple liqueurs, such as Du Nord’s delicious Pronounced Apple Liqueur, are flavored with additional spices or ingredients to simulate the classic “apple pie” taste profile. We love Du Nord’s stuff because it avoids the cloying sweetness sometimes present in this category, and we’d recommend Pronounced as a fireside flask-filler or as a building block for a dessert cocktail. 

Ice Cider

_{Photo by Jordan Wipf}

As a completely non-distilled product, Ice Cider shares more in common with traditionally-made hard cider than it does other products on this list, but its sturdy ABV (usually around 13%) and thick, rich flavor gives it a kinship to Pommeau and liqueurs.

Ice cider is made by freezing cider and shaving off its water content (which freezes more quickly than alcohol) in a step-by-step process that eventually concentrates the cider into a sweet, unctuous beverage that still retains much of the original apple character. Often producers, like the MN-based Milk & Honey, will barrel-age their ice cider after concentration to further bring out the caramel-y qualities naturally present in this cider.

We’d recommend cracking open a bottle of ice at your next dinner party in place of a dessert or fortified wine, or as a solo indulgence when watching your favorite fall movies under a cozy blanket.