How to Make an Apple Jack, the Warming Brandy Cocktail Perfect for the Depths of Winter
The problem with winter is that you can be done with it long before it’s done with you.
For me, it always hits around mid-February: That feeling when you wake up and with heavy lids look outside to find that it is yet again gray and cold, and something deep inside you just snaps. The myriad indignities of winter now seem too much to bear—the slushy puddles, the numb fingers, that frigid first step out of the shower—all of it interminable, day after dreary day. December was fun, with lights in the trees and a steady stream of treats; January is like secular Lent, some long-overdue restraint, but by the middle of February you might have forgotten that there was anything pleasant about winter at all. In times like these, it’s worth reacquainting yourself with the charms of the season, and with drinks like the Apple Jack.
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“If the shawl-collar cardigan were a cocktail, it would be this one,” writes Georgette Moger-Petraske. This, in context, is high praise: Moger-Petraske is the widow of the legendary Sasha Petraske, a man who believed the era of Prohibition to be a golden age for both cocktails and menswear. Petraske was the visionary who opened N.Y.C.’s Milk & Honey in late 1999, and in doing so ignited the cocktail renaissance we all now so freely enjoy. He had an incredible eye for talent, both in bartenders and in cocktails themselves, and is singularly associated with the type of simplicity and precision that attends many of the best neo-classics of the era.
The Apple Jack Cocktail is one of these. It starts with apple brandy—a spirit distilled from apples and aged in oak barrels, the orchard equivalent of a vineyard’s Cognac, and made for hundreds of years in both northern France and the American east coast—which is tarted up with lemon juice, balanced with sugar, and then given a juicy blast of comforting spices by the addition of apple cider. “Much like his favorite sartorial standby, Sasha adored this drink on a crisp fall evening,” Moger-Petraske recounts in Regarding Cocktails, “but he also found it a fine choice to hunker down with deep into winter.”
He was allegedly inspired by a cocktail of same name in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, but it’s hard to see how—the Apple Jack Cocktail in the Savoy is a half-and-half mix of French apple brandy and sweet vermouth with a dash of bitters, while Petraske’s version is a sour, a different thing entirely. It starts with the zing of lemon and brandy’s resonant fruit, then goes deep in the midpalate with oak and apples and finishes long with the lingering baking spices. It was conceived for American apple brandy but works with Calvados (the French kind). It also works with bourbon for that matter, and a mild scotch, and definitely with Irish whiskey. And really also vodka and aged rum or tequila. It just works. It’s one of the greatest things you can make with some cider leftover in the back of your fridge (that is, if you don’t feel like heating it up), and is the perfect winter cocktail, charming and cold-weather specific while still stopping well short of the cookies-for-breakfast nihilism of the holidays.
Try an Apple Jack before winter’s over. The cocktail may not be any help in de-icing your windshield or shoveling the walk, but it can certainly help to remind you that the cold weather isn’t all bad, in the end.
Apple Jack Cocktail
2 oz. apple brandy
0.75 oz. lemon juice
0.75 oz. simple syrup
1 oz. apple cider
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake good and hard for six to eight seconds. Strain up into a coupe or cocktail glass, and garnish with a lemon peel.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS
Proportions: Because Petraske was such a perfectionist, I want to offer his preferred specs as well. His version would’ve been 1.5 oz. apple brandy, with 0.5 oz. each of the lemon, simple syrup, and cider, shaken and strained up into a coupe. This is a cleaner and more precise drink and feels leaner and more adult. It’s delicious. With my changes above it becomes more garish and juicier, more spiced, and “smoother” i.e. the spirit speaks with a comparatively softer voice. I recognize Petraske’s version is more elegant, but I think in terms of raw deliciousness I prefer mine. Put another way—if I’m having three of these, I’d prefer his version, but if I’m only having one, I prefer mine.
Apple Brandy: This drink, as noted, works with almost any aged spirit, but was originally created for apple brandy. In side-by-sides I preferred the French style (“Calvados”) for its rustic personality, but a lot of this will fall to personal taste. It was great either way. You’re not likely to have much of a choice when it comes to Calvados brands at your local store, but for cocktails I tend to favor the younger end of the spectrum, like the “selection” bottlings from Christian Drouin or Lemorton. For American, you can’t go wrong with Lairds, but for one note—even though the name of this cocktail is the “Apple Jack,” do not buy/use the 80-proof version of Laird’s Applejack, which is only 35 percent apple distillate and 65 percent “neutral” distillate. You want something that’s all apples, like Laird’s Bonded, or Laird’s “Straight” Apple Jack 86.
Simple Syrup: Equal parts sugar and water and stir until the sugar dissolves. The warmer the water, the faster that will happen, but even room temp water will dissolve sugar in two to four minutes of stirring.
Apple Cider: The big question. I imagine the most common excuse for making this is having some cider laying around anyway, so in that case, use what you have. I’ll just note that you want something spiced, cloudy, and brown. Juicing your own is the best and most reliable option. In any case, the advice we gave at the bottom of our Hot Mulled Cider Cocktail article still holds.
Garnish: Petraske didn’t call for it, but I think a lemon peel gives you something to hold onto in the front palate, and I strongly prefer it.
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