St George California Reserve Apple Brandy

A delicious pour for fall and especially good in mulled wine.

What an incredible spirit. I wish I had bought 3 for my home bar when I had the chance. No other apple brandy comes close to this gem.

It’s very smooth. I tried it a few years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. I had to get a bottle for my bar. Hope they continue making it!

Great taste and price

I went on a tour of a specialized apple brandy distillery in central CA recently. One of the things the head distiller made clear is that, in his experience, barrel aging is detrimental to the fruity apple flavors of the spirit. He theorized that the simple esters of the apples are very quick to transform into more complex esters that express honey & spice. They work on an apple orchard and value their apple flavor, so they carefully and lightly oak their brandy in very climate-controlled conditions.

St George Apple Brandy is somewhat of the opposite. While there's a lot of apple on the nose, the taste noticeably hints a longer-aged spirit, having lost a bit of the 'biting into a crisp apple' flavors that I really loved about the aforementioned distillery. More oaky, for sure. Less 'apple' and more 'brandy'.

It's still a fantastic spirit (it's St George, of course it is), but I feel it misses a bit of what can make an apple brandy really special.