Applejack (drink)

Not to be confused with the American breakfast cereal known as Apple Jacks.
Bottles of applejack demonstrating the apple cider-like coloration of the spirit with an apple to the bottles' right

Applejack is type of apple brandy traditionally associated with the American colonial era[1] and is generally considered to be one of the United States' "original" spirits.[2] Applejack was traditionally created via freeze distillation (or "jacking") of apple wine or apple cider and while homebrewing methods may still involve freeze distillation, modern professional brewers use standard distillation processes.

Very popular in the early- to mid-colonial era, the drink's prevalence declined in the 17th- and 18th-centuries amid competition from other alcoholic spirits as they became easier to manufacture.[3][4][5] Applejack experienced a revival during the Prohibition era, primarily due to the drink's ease-of-manufacture, but again declined in prevalence after the repeal of Prohibition.[6] It experienced another resurgence in popularity in the mid-2010s[7] and early-2020s.[8]

Applejack is generally considered to be a type of brandy[9] and is, in the United States, legally classified as such.[10] Applejack is used in several cocktails, including the Jack Rose.[3]

History

Laird's Apple Jack sign in Scobeyville

Applejack was first produced in colonial New Jersey in 1698 by William Laird, a Scots American who settled in Monmouth County.[11] The drink was once known as Jersey Lightning.[11] Laird's great-grandson, Robert Laird, who served in the Continental Army, incorporated Laird's Distillery in 1780,[11] after previously operating a tavern.[12] The oldest licensed applejack distillery in the United States, Laird & Company of Scobeyville, New Jersey, was until the 2000s the country's only remaining producer of applejack, and continues to dominate applejack production.[11][13]

Once popular in early America, applejack declined in popularity due to the rise of other spirits that were easier to manufacture on a commercial basis, including rum and whiskey (especially bourbon) in the 19th century and gin, vodka, and tequila in the 20th century.[3] In 1920, with the beginning of the Prohibition era, Laird's ended the production of liquor and began producing apple juice. In 1931, John Evans Laird received permission to produce apple brandy for "medicinal purposes" and stockpiled its product until the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.[12]

Applejack has been associated with four presidents of the United States: After the American Revolution, George Washington requested from Robert Laird his family's recipe for applejack; Abraham Lincoln served it during a brief stint as a tavern keeper in Springfield, Illinois; Franklin D. Roosevelt included applejack in the Manhattans he regularly consumed; and Lyndon B. Johnson gave a case of applejack to Soviet leader Alexei Kosygin in the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference.[12]

In the 2010s, a number of smaller craft distilleries began to produce applejack in places such as New Hampshire,[14] Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley,[15] New York's Hudson Valley,[7] Holland, Michigan,[16] and in Toronto.[17]

Production

Home-made

The name applejack derives from the traditional method of producing the drink, jacking, which is the process of freezing fermented cider and then removing the ice, increasing the alcohol content.[3] Cider produced after the fall harvest was left outside during the winter. Periodically the frozen chunks of ice that had formed were removed, thus concentrating the unfrozen alcohol in the remaining liquid.[5] An alternative method involved placing a cask of hard cider in snow, allowing ice to form on the inside of the cask as the contents began to freeze, and then tapping the cask and pouring off the still-liquid portion of the contents. Starting with the fermented juice, with an alcohol content of less than ten percent, the concentrated result can contain 25–40% alcohol.[5] Because freeze distillation is a low-infrastructure method of production compared to evaporative distillation, and does not require the burning of firewood to create heat, hard cider and applejack were historically easier to produce,[5] though more expensive than grain alcohol.[18]

The disadvantage of freeze distillation, also called fractional crystallization, is that the substances remaining after the removal of the water include not only ethanol, but also harmful methanol, esters, aldehydes, and fusel alcohols.[19] In modern times, reducing methanol with the absorption of a molecular sieve is a practical method for production.[20]

Commercial

When commercial production began, applejack was also starting to be produced through evaporative distillation.[21] Modern commercially produced applejack is often no longer produced by jacking but rather by blending apple brandy and neutral grain spirits.[12][4][5]

Comparison to calvados

Applejack is somewhat similar to calvados, an apple brandy from Normandy, France,[3] to which it is often compared.[22] However, calvados is made from cider apples, while applejack is made from apples such as Winesap.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ Morganstern, Adam (30 April 2018). "Applejack: America's Original Distilled Spirit Returns To Its Roots". Forbes. Forbes Media. Archived from the original on 20 September 2019. It's an apple brandy, historically called Applejack in America
  2. ^ Morganstern, Adam (30 April 2018). "Applejack: America's Original Distilled Spirit Returns To Its Roots". Forbes. Forbes Media. Archived from the original on 20 September 2019. Long before there was such a thing as American whiskey, the Laird family started producing Applejack in New Jersey in 1698.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Ken Albala (2010). "Applejack". In Rachel Black (ed.). Alcohol in Popular Culture: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-313-38048-8.
  4. ^ a b Michael Foley, Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner's Guide to a Holy Happy Hour (2015, ISBN 1-62157-383-4): Perhaps the most interesting option is applejack, the first distilled liquor native to North America and a great favorite among the colonists. [Now] usually a blend of apple brandy and neutral spirits that retains the flavor of the apples[.]
  5. ^ a b c d e Sanborn Conner Brown, Wines & Beers of Old New England: A How-to-do-it History (1978, ISBN 0-87451-148-8)
  6. ^ Moskin, Julia (2 February 2021). "America's First Moonshine, Applejack, Returns in Sleeker Style". The New York Times. United States: The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on 2 February 2021. Up to and through the Prohibition era, there were countless producers making and (illegally) selling applejack in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where roads were limited and trees provided thick cover from government agents.
  7. ^ a b Newman, Kara (4 February 2016). "Are People Taking Applejack Seriously Now? Johnny Appleseed goes craft". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 5 February 2016.
  8. ^ Moskin, Julia (2 February 2021). "America's First Moonshine, Applejack, Returns in Sleeker Style". The New York Times. United States: The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on 2 February 2021. The Blue Ridge Mountains aren't the only region with a crush of new applejack makers in the last decade.
  9. ^ Saladino, Emily (10 October 2023). "Applejack vs. Apple Brandy: The Main Differences". Liquor.com. People Inc. Archived from the original on 1 October 2024. All applejack is apple brandy, but not all apple brandy is applejack.
  10. ^ "Applejack vs. Brandy vs. Whiskey: What Sets Laird's Applejack Apart". Laird & Company. 16 December 2025. Archived from the original on 16 December 2025. According to U.S. regulations, applejack is classified as apple brandy—a spirit distilled from fermented apple juice and aged in oak.
  11. ^ a b c d Karen Tina Harrison, Jersey Lightning, New Jersey Monthly, July 13, 2009.
  12. ^ a b c d Ralph Ginzburg, Harvest Is In at Centuries-Old Distillery, The New York Times (October 26, 1986).
  13. ^ Joseph D'Agnese, In Search Of ...; Not Your Toddler's Apple Cider, The New York Times (June 11, 2000).
  14. ^ Tamworth Distilling
  15. ^ Kurt Bresswein, How it's made: Apples to applejack in the Lehigh Valley, lehighvalleylive.com (November 2016).
  16. ^ Garret Ellison, Applejack is back: Coppercraft Distillery goes to market with historic American spirit, MLive.com (September 30, 2014)
  17. ^ Jacky Apple Jack
  18. ^ Lew Nichols, Annie Proulx, Cider: Making, Using & Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider, 3rd Edition (2015, ISBN 1-60342-839-9)
  19. ^ Matthew B. Rowley, Moonshine! (Lark Books, 2007), p. 141.
  20. ^ Hui-Ling Ma; Xiu-Ping Yang; Ying Zuo (15 April 2006). "Study on Method of Decreasing Methanol in Apple Pomace Spirit". Food Science. 27 (4): 138–142.
  21. ^ Scott C. Martin, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol (2015, ISBN 1-4833-3108-3): The evaporative technique was used when commercial applejack production began.
  22. ^ Eric Asimov, An Apple Orchard in a Glass, The New York Times (December 8, 2004).
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