Applejack is a strongalcoholic drink produced fromapples. Popular in theAmerican colonial era, the drink's prevalence declined in the 16th and 17th centuries amid competition from other spirits.[1][2][3]
Applejack is used in severalcocktails, including theJack Rose.[1] It is a type offruit brandy.
Applejack was first produced incolonial New Jersey in 1698 by William Laird, aScots American who settled inMonmouth County.[4] The drink was once known asJersey Lightning.[4] Laird's great-grandson, Robert Laird, who served in theContinental Army, incorporated Laird's Distillery in 1780,[4] after previously operating atavern.[5] The oldest licensed applejack distillery in the United States,Laird & Company ofScobeyville, New Jersey, was until the 2000s the country's only remaining producer of applejack, and continues to dominate applejack production.[4][6]
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.[1] In 1920, with the beginning of theProhibition era, Laird's ended the production of liquor and began producingapple 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.[5]
Applejack has been associated with fourpresidents 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 abrief stint as a tavern keeper inSpringfield, Illinois;Franklin D. Roosevelt included applejack in theManhattans he regularly consumed; andLyndon B. Johnson gave a case of applejack to Soviet leaderAlexei Kosygin in the 1967Glassboro Summit Conference.[5]
In the 2010s, a number of smaller craft distilleries began to produce applejack in places such as New Hampshire,[7] Pennsylvania'sLehigh Valley,[8] New York'sHudson Valley,[9]Holland, Michigan,[10] and inToronto.[11]
The nameapplejack derives from the traditional method of producing the drink,jacking, which is the process offreezing fermented cider and then removing the ice, increasing the alcohol content.[1]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.[3] 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.[3] Because freeze distillation is a low-infrastructure method of production compared to evaporativedistillation, and does not require the burning of firewood to create heat, hard cider and applejack were historically easier to produce,[3] though more expensive than grain alcohol.[12]
The disadvantage of freeze distillation, also calledfractional crystallization, is that the substances remaining after the removal of the water include not only ethanol, but also harmfulmethanol,esters,aldehydes, andfusel alcohols.[13] In modern times, reducing methanol with the absorption of amolecular sieve is a practical method for production.[14]
When commercial production began, applejack was also starting to be produced through evaporative distillation.[15]Modern commercially produced applejack is often no longer produced by jacking but rather by blending applebrandy and neutral grain spirits.[5][2][3]
Applejack is somewhat similar tocalvados, an apple brandy fromNormandy, France,[1] to which it is often compared.[16] However, calvados is made fromcider apples, while applejack is made from apples such asWinesap.[1]
