The apple flavor was light to begin with and once the ice enters the mix, you’re down to about the level of apple flavor I’d expect from a fruit wedge dropped in a glass of vodka. In this case, that’s precisely what happened. It’s great for toning down the more undesirable aspects of the spirit, but it also kills those lighter flavors with friendly fire. Ice is the natural enemy of the light and fruity flavor in spirits. I suspect the blending with neutral spirits has hurt the final product, toning down the apple flavor too much and adding just a bit of odd grain alcohol flavor on the finish with a bit more of that bitter aspect. What apple flavor I can get is fantastic, delivering on the promise of apple cider alcohol… but it’s very muted. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed in the flavor. (Well, besides the alcohol content, I suppose.) There’s a bit of a tartness on the end of the aroma here, but overall it smells like sweet apple cider. Put this next to a glass of apple cider and you’ll have trouble telling the two aromas apart. All in all, there’s nothing to fault here. It does a great job of conveying the historical legacy using aesthetic choices without going over the top. Below that design is a small label that describes the story of the company in brief and contains the regulatory information about the contents. Most of the bottle is transparent, and there’s an eagle design on the back of the bottle that is visible through to the front, which is always a neat trick. The branding information is printed on a transparent label, allowing the color of the spirits inside the bottle to shine through. The bottle is capped off with a plastic screw-on top. The bottle generally looks like a wine bottle, with the exception of a significant bulge in the neck which makes pouring easier.
Overall, the bottle design is simple but it’s reminiscent of the older styles of spirits bottle - which is consistent with the deep historical roots of this company. After that oak barrel nap, for this version of their product, the newly made apple brandy is then mixed with neutral grain spirits to reduce the price and increase the volume of production. Once the brandy has been produced, it is placed into oak barrels to age for an undisclosed period of time. That liquid is then fermented to create a mildly alcoholic beer, which is distilled in copper pot stills to extract the alcohol content. As such, this spirit starts as a brand new crop of Virginia grown apples that are crushed and juiced to extract the sugary liquid within. Technically, “apple jack” is a type of brandy made from distilling apples.
The company remains a private family owned and operated business to this day. After prohibition ended, the company expanded to two additional distilleries, and then (due to the lack of apple orchards in New Jersey) moved their apple brandy production to the new Virginia-based distillery.
Over the years, the distillery moved to Scobeyville, New Jersey, and continued operation through prohibition by producing non-alcoholic products such as applesauce and apple cider until they were granted a license for medicinal apple brandy in 1933. The family would eventually be granted license #1 for the distillation of spirits in 1780 by the United States government. The distillery continued operation throughout the American Revolution, producing applejack for consumption by the Continental Army. It became a popular stopping point for coaches in the area, including a visit from future founding father George Washington (who requested the recipe from the family in 1760). The Laird family opened the Colt’s Neck Inn in 1717, producing their apple brandy (called “applejack”) in a building behind the inn. Having worked as a distiller back in Ireland, he continued the practice in the New World using the most abundant crops available: apples. Alexander Laird came to the United States in 1698, moving from his home in County Fife, Scotland to Monmouth County, New Jersey.