The 7 Best Apple Brandies to Drink in 2020

Best Overall

St. George Spirits Apple Brandy

View On Drizly $35 View On Wine.com $69 View On Totalwine.com

• Region: California
• ABV: 35%
• Tasting Notes: Baked apple, honey, cake spices

"They do impeccable distillations at St. George," says Krueger. "There's a nod to tradition but with everything modern in the production." At their state-of-the-art facility in Alamdeda, California, the prolific California outfit takes a field blend of apples sourced from a regional family orchard, distills it, and ages it in a combination of French and American oak for a brandy that Desoblin calls "quite powerful, quite rich."

Read Next: The Best Brandies

Best for Sipping

Osocalis Rare Alambic Brandy

View On Drizly $90 View On Wine.com $49 View On Totalwine.com

• Region: California
• ABV: 40%
• Tasting Notes: Fresh apples, brown sugar, pastry

Desoblin declares this New World bottle “tremendous” for its "Old World take" on apple brandy. Aged in French oak, it's a dead ringer, he says, for "a 20-year-old brandy from Normandy." He likes its balance of richness with “vibrant, fruity, crushed-apple aromas,” and the “many-layered complexity” that comes on in “explosive” waves of apple expression.

Best Budget

Laird's Straight Applejack 86

View On Drizly $11 View On Wine.com $32 View On Bevmo.com

• Region: New Jersey
• ABV: 43%
• Tasting Notes: Caramel, apple, vanilla

The nation's original apple brandy, first produced in 1698 by a Scottish immigrant to New Jersey, Laird's is "super affordable," says Krueger. Though the distillery invented the blended applejack category in the 1970s, mixing the brandy with neutral grain spirits, his pick is this 86-proof straight brandy, made like it was back in the Colonial period. Desbolin agrees, calling it "an ideal mixer," especially for brandy sours. Plus, it's one of the only apple brandies produced by a woman, Lisa Laird, who runs this 322-year-old family business.

Best 100 Proof

Black Dirt Apple Jack Brandy

View On Drizly $27 View On Flaviar View On Caskers

• Region: New York
• ABV: 50%
• Tasting Notes: Vanilla, cinnamon, caramelized apple 

Produced at Warwick Winery and Distillery, home to the popular Doc's Cider, this apple brandy shows "a great balance between the fruit and the age," says Krueger. "It would satisfy a whiskey drinker." It exhibits the flavors of the wood sugars extracted during four or more years of maturation in charred American oak barrels, making it "a little more powerful, a little richer, a little more aggressive than others," says Desoblin.

Best for Cocktails

Copper & Kings Floodwall Apple Brandy

View On Drizly $50 View On Wine.com $39

• Region: Kentucky
• ABV: 50%
• Tasting Notes: Apples, vanilla, cinnamon

When you're making a cocktail, it's good to have some extra proof to work with, says Krueger, of this high-ABV apple brandy. "Proper aging in a mix of barrels gives it depth and those rancio (earthy, nutty) flavors that enhance a cocktail," he notes. Desoblin lauds it for its "overall versatility," "cool, modern-looking branding" that shines on a home bar, and most uniquely, the "sonic maturation process" in which distillers blast rock music in the barrel room to vibrate the whiskey against the wood, enhancing its aging.

Read Next: The Best Hard Ciders

Best Innovative

Clear Creek Apple Brandy

View On Drizly $30

• Region: Oregon
• ABV: 40%
• Tasting Notes: Fresh apples, oak tannins

Clear Creek's original owner, Steve McDuffy, was "a pioneer in fruit brandy," says Desoblin, "doing everything in a very Alsace way." Though the company has changed hands, Krueger says it's still an innovator—"a West Coast operation making serious nods to the Calvados style," using new and old French Limousin oak and decidedly American fruit. This 8-year-old brandy is distilled from 100% Golden Delicious apples grown in Washington's Yakima Valley.