Home Bar Staples: Brandy
Let's talk about brandy.
It's one of the major spirits classes. Major. It should be in your regular rotation if you're serious about making cocktails at home. It's essential for the Sidecar, which David Embury rated as one of the six cocktails everyone should be able to make. It's one of the ingredients that made the grade for chapter one of The Cocktail Seminars and figures in 10% of the recipes (and the same percent in Classic Cocktails!), which is slightly less than rye whiskey and slightly more than bourbon. It's the base spirit in the Japanese, which we're fairly sure was an original recipe by Jerry Thomas, author of the very first bartender's guide; and it's half of the split base in the Vieux Carré, one of the most beloved cocktails to return to prominence in the renaissance period.
It is, however, not at the top of the list for a lot of home bartenders. Some of that is due to our collective failure to properly educate the public about the wonders of brandy cocktails – and, in all fairness, to the very effective public education that's been done by some of the other major categories – but I think another issue is price.
I wasn't shy in The Cocktail Seminars about proposing that one might want to spring for a pricey bottle, even for mixing purposes. I got that suggestion from David Wondrich, who is sound on just about everything. It also wasn’t just brandy getting special treatment: I made an analogous suggestion about Irish whiskey and, for that matter, about Chartreuse.*
When compared with ordering brandy cocktails at a bar, you still come out very far ahead financially when mixing at home with an expensive bottle. But that, of course, is only a persuasive argument if you are already inclined to consume brandy cocktails. Nobody wants to drop ninety bucks on an unfamiliar spirit just so they can a. decide whether they like it, and b. proceed to mix it into a series of drinks to see whether they like them.
That's what workhorse-priced spirits are for. My recommendation has historically been that spirits for the home bar are best priced between $30-$40. Even with recent inflation, that's still mostly true. Some categories (rum, vodka) run a little less expensive for the target quality; some run pricier, like mezcal and brandy.
A quick terminology review: “brandy” is the general term for spirits distilled from fermented fruits, although if the fruit is unspecified, it’s understood to refer to grape brandy specifically. That is, a recipe that wants you to use apple brandy will say “apple brandy,” while a recipe that wants you to use grape brandy will say “brandy.” Cognac and Armagnac are grape brandies made in France in the regions with which they share names according to distinctive local processes; these are not the only French brandies, but they are the best-known of the French brandy subcategories. Spain and California are other major brandy-producing regions. Pisco, produced in Chile and Peru, is also a grape brandy, but the vast majority of it is unaged, whereas the European and American expressions are overwhelmingly aged in oak barrels. Cocktail recipes that call for “brandy” are referring to aged brandy; if pisco is desired, the recipe will always say “pisco” rather than “brandy.”
Got all that? Let’s talk Cognac terminology for a minute, then, because Cognacs have historically been very popular in brandy cocktails. They’re generally full-bodied, but they’re also team players, where (for instance) Armangac can be more pugnacious.
Cognacs are classified by age. A VS Cognac is at least two years old, VSOP at least four, and XO at least ten. Age does not necessarily mean quality when comparing across brands – a better-made VS will taste better than a lower-quality VSOP, etc. – but within a given brand, older Cognacs do tend to be more appealing than younger ones.
A decade ago, you could reliably get Courvoisier VSOP for under $40, and it was 100% my go-to recommendation for mixing brandy cocktails at home. It had the right combination of presence and elegance, of phenols and fruits, to serve as the backbone of a brandy cocktail. These days, it’s hard to find even the younger VS expression of Courvoisier at that price point.
I’ve never found a replacement I was as confident about recommending as the Courvoisier VSOP back then.** This has nagged at me. I have a workhorse spirit brand to recommend in every other major category, and often more than one. Why not brandy?
So, I finally decided to answer this question experimentally. I bought four bottles of brandy that I could get for under $30, tasted them side-by-side, and then mixed them all into Brandy Alexanders, which I tasted fresh and again after sitting out for a little while. My findings are below, but first, let me walk through the brands I chose:
Courvoisier VS Cognac
375ml for $19.49
I trust Courvoisier’s products, based on my previous experience with the VSOP, and a full 750 of the VS can still (sometimes) be found for about $40, which is the upper end of my target price range for workhorse spirits. It seemed worth a shot to give it a try.
Courvoisier VSOP Cognac
375ml for $27.49
This was a control group to some extent, because I already know it’s good. But it’s also the case that if you don’t make brandy cocktails terribly often, a 375 of this isn’t too much of an outlay on a price-per-bottle basis, even if the price per ounce compares unfavorably to the rest of these.
St Remy VSOP Brandy
750ml for $12.99
A recommendation from various corners of the internet for a good quality but inexpensive French brandy. It’s not made in the Cognac region and doesn’t get the Cognac name, so it ends up a lot less expensive than similar-quality Cognacs with the same age statements, which it apparently often outperforms in blind tastings. At thirteen bucks a bottle, I figured it was worth finding out!
E & J Brandy XO
750ml for $11.99
When I first started drinking brandy in college, it was E&J, which is one of the cheapest brandies out there. That’s not as much of a red flag as it may sound like. The floor on brandy’s quality is higher than it is for other spirits categories – bring me the cheapest brandy and the cheapest vodka, rum, or whiskey you can find, and I will drink the brandy 100% of the time – and in any event, I have some fond feelings for the E&J brand. I had never even known they had an XO expression before, never mind tried it; I reckoned it was probably their best product, and I should give it a try if only for old times’ sake.
The words:images ratio in this post is 1150:1 – that’s good, right?
Tasting Notes: Straight
Courvoisier VS
A little hot, woodier than it is raisiny – woodier in fact than the VSOP, which makes me suspect that they're aging it in newer barrels.
Burns the tongue a little, even at only 40%.
Courvoisier VSOP
Slightly hotter than I remembered, actually, but it smooths out on the finish. Richer-tasting than its viscosity or sweetness would suggest. Raisiny.
Easily and by far the most interesting and complex finish of the four. Lingers nicely after the swallow. Finishes hotter and raisinier than the VS. Sensation on the tongue is more of a prickle than a burn.
St. Remy VSOP
Reads too hot for me. Left in too much of the heads in distillation; too terpinaceous. Something almost lemony. But, tasting it again after the Courvoisier VS, it's got more interesting flavor going on, at least.
E&J XO
Tastes almost artificial, somehow. Reminds me of fake grape (a whisper of it) and of liqueurs that come in plastic bottles – think cheap triple sec.
It's the least hot of the four, which is bizarre to me. It makes me wonder about sweeteners and additives; they're all the same damn proof.
Tasting Notes: Brandy Alexander, freshly made
As a reminder, the Brandy Alexander (as I make it, at least) consists of 1 oz. brandy, 1 oz. crème de cacao, and 1½ oz. light cream or half-and-half, shaken with ice and strained into a cocktail glass, with a sprinkle of grated nutmeg on top. All four of these were made the same way.
Courvoisier VS
A damn fine Brandy Alexander; no surprises here, good or bad. Not that far off the mark of the VSOP.
Courvoisier VSOP
Still my gold standard of what this drink should taste like. Well balanced and harmonized; more than the sum of its parts.
St. Remy VSOP
Initial thoughts: Actually pretty good! No issues with that lemony quality I noticed in the straight tasting, which surprises me a bit; I was expecting a very obvious clash between that and the chocolate and cream.
Further thoughts after tasting the other three: This makes a phenomenal Brandy Alexander. It lacks the raisininess of the Courvoisiers – not a bad thing here.
E&J XO
That fake taste punches through. Distinguishable from the others, and not in a good way.
Tasting Notes: Brandy Alexander, after sitting out for a while
Courvoisier VSOP
“That's perfect.”
Courvoisier VS
A little rougher around the edges than the VSOP.
St Remy VSOP
Ditto, but also, “This is a really [expletive]ing stellar Brandy Alexander. I could drink ten of these.”
E&J XO
That artificial note is still there! It tastes like something they would add to dried fruit to keep it tasting “fresh” longer. Don't like it.***
Overall, the Courvoisier VSOP is still *exactly* what I want a Brandy Alexander to be, tastewise, even after half an hour or so. The VS and the St. Remy are also both rock solid, they're just not quite as on point as the VSOP. Still, if you handed me any of these without the other two to try side-by-side, I'm not sure I could tell you which one was which. If anything, the St. Remy version gained on the others the longer I let them sit.
As for the E&J XO: Look, I still don't like it. But if I were served it in a Brandy Alexander at a party, I wouldn't taste it and go, “oh, they used a cheap brandy in this.” I might be able to call out the E&J by taste now, having gone through this exercise, but two days ago I couldn't have done that. I do think I would have switched to a different cocktail for my next round if one were available, but I would have finished the E&J drink (I did this time!), and I wouldn't have refused a second if that was all there was. And it wouldn't have been obvious to me that the unpalatable thing in the mixture was the brandy as opposed to one of the other ingredients.
All this is to say, if you’re just dipping your toe into the waters of mixing brandy cocktails at home, the $20 Courvoisier VS and the $13 St. Remy VSOP both seem like pretty damn good choices. The Courvoisier VSOP is better – and it’s leagues better if you’re drinking it straight – but is it worth the money for the brandy cocktail neophyte? No, probably not. It isn’t four times better than the St. Remy VSOP, even though it’s four times the price; for that matter, the Courvoisier VS isn’t three times better than the St. Remy, despite being thrice as expensive.
If I had to make a call right now, I’d say that Courvoisier VSOP is perfect for someone like me, who loves brandy cocktails, nevertheless isn’t going through the bottle all that quickly (and so can get by with a 375), and can maybe distinguish the VSOP from the VS on a good day. But for everybody else, including me on most days, the Courvoisier VS and the St. Remy VSOP are perfectly solid brandies for mixing cocktails at home, and the St. Remy is easily the best value for the money.
What I would want to do next is taste St. Remy against Courvoisier in a more brandy-forward cocktail, and see if the difference is still so slight. The Sidecar would be the obvious choice, maybe the Champs-Elysees. I am basically certain that a Japanese or a Brandy Flip would be comparably delicious with either – both of those shake the brandy with rich, viscous ingredients with lots of deep phenolic flavors, just like the Brandy Alexander does, and what worked here should work just as well there. Stay tuned for another side-by-side comparison in Part 2!
*My recommendations ran north of $60 a bottle in both of those cases at the time, and recently Chartreuse has gotten much more expensive.
** In my own bar, I’ve most recently used Gensac, which is enjoyable and appropriately priced; but I think it’s only available in Massachusetts, and even here I’ve only ever seen it at one store.
***I was making a big batch of egg nog at approximately the same time that I was doing these side-by-side tests, and I disliked this note so strongly, in fact, that I decided not to mix any of it into the egg nog, not even to use it up. I didn’t want that note anywhere near it.
