Laird's Apple Brandy Single Cask Selection

I tasted 2 oz with and without water in a glen cairn. This is a Binnys SiB cask strength pick coming in at 130 proof. It is 7 years old, barreled in 2015. The nose has honey crisp apples and cinnamon. There is also some clove and ethanol that moves off quickly. The palate is hot! It's a tongue tickler for sure. Once the ethanol clears, it is pear, baked apple brown betty, and a bit of lemony citrus. It's much tastier with water where the high proof doesn't overwhelm. This is a high octane spirit and not for the faint of heart! The finish is a bit longer and much hotter than you would like compared to a gentle snifter of sipping brandy. It goes out on a cinnamon red hot candy note. Overall, cask strength brandy is so different from sipping brandy for me. This is more like a hot apple-flavored whiskey. There's a bit too much of the rough stuff for me to really enjoy. I need water to manage it. That said, when you downproof it and let it breathe, it is a classic cure for the common cold.

After a 5-10 minute rest, the dominant aroma is apples, specifically red ripe apple, caramel, spice like nutmeg, oaky vanilla, banana, floral notes, pepper, honey, and almond nuttiness. The taste is an intense blast of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg spices, apple, alcohol heat, then heavy caramel, oakiness, apples again, some nuttiness, and a moderately long decay with apple, spices, vanilla, almonds, and medium caramel. A few drops of water turn down the burn and open up more higher fruit notes and caramel.

Apples and alcohol. Very strong, with few other flavors compared to Calvados at the same cost. I typically enjoy higher proof spirits, but diluting this one reduces the harshness and reveals sweeter notes. I detect minimal oak from six years of aging.

Selected by Virginia ABC, aged 5 years/63.75% ABV. Nose: apple pie, pears, honey, cinnamon. Palate: tastes like jolly rancher apple, caramel corn. Finish: zesty, sour. Remarkable… liquid candy in a glass, a touch too sweet but still enjoyable.

On the nose, there's apple and clove. The taste is intense (hello 124+ proof) with more apple and spice, but the spice shifts to cinnamon. The finish is quite warming. I find it enjoyable.

It's like drinking an apple pie. Apples, and more apples, and then still more apples. There are some phenolic notes and a bit of spice, but then an overwhelming amount of apples.