![]() ![]() In 1933, as the sun was about to set on Prohibition, the distillery was granted approval to produce alcohol for “medicinal purposes”, giving them a jump on production before the ban was lifted nationwide. Applejack was in vogue in the metropolitan mecca of New York City in the early 19OOs, served in popular drinks like the Jack Rose (made with lime juice and grenadine) and the Star Cocktail (a Manhattan that swaps applejack for whiskey.) Like most American distillery operations, Laird & Company shuttered during Prohibition, but was able to stay in business selling sweet cider, applesauce and apple soda for the thirteen dry years of the Noble Experiment. As New Jersey farmland became scarce in the 197Os, distillery operations relocated to North Garden, Virginia near the Shenandoah Valley. Robert Laird completed the first commercial transaction of Laird’s applejack in Scobeyville, NJ in 178O, and Laird’s continues to operate its historical headquarters, as well as an aging, blending and bottling facility, there today. George Washington was a fan of the Laird family recipe and wrote to request a copy, presumably to make his own “cyder spirits.” Robert Laird would later serve as a dragoon under George Washington during the Revolutionary War, during which time the family also supplied applejack to Washington’s troops. There he made applejack for himself, friends, and neighbors. Like many of his contemporaries, Laird deployed his distilling knowledge to make spirits with the most abundant resource at hand, the apples that flourished in his adopted home of New Jersey. The Laird family story begins when William Laird, a Scottish immigrant who is believed to have had a distilling background, relocated with his family to Monmouth County, New Jersey in 1698. We can’t talk about applejack in the United States without sharing the history of Laird & Company, and many of us in the bar world today would not be talking about applejack at all if it weren’t for Lisa Laird Dunn, the brand’s ninth-generation owner, Chief Operating Officer, and Global Ambassador. The low alcohol cider was left outside in cold temperatures, allowing water in the base cider to freeze, then be chipped away, leaving behind a potent, often rough, apple spirit (though most commercial distillers made their “cider spirits” in stills.) Applejack was made in several states in the Northeast during the Colonial period, but it is most deeply identified with New Jersey, hence its nickname “Jersey lightning.” Distilleries abounded in the Garden State in the 19th century, with more than seventy in operation there by the 189Os. Today the terms “applejack” and “apple brandy” can be used interchangeably in the United States, but the spirit takes its name from a method of freeze distillation called “jacking” that was used to make applejack out of hard cider in the 17th century. I’m not talking about the cereal (Applejacks) or the My Little Pony (orange with a yellow mane and five little apples on her hindquarters), but applejack the spirit, an American style of apple brandy that was one of the most popular tipples in Colonial America. It’s trendy to reach for pumpkin spice drinks as sweater weather rolls in, but to me, fall is applejack season. At ten, I thought: “there must be more to life than driving around to look at dying leaves.” All that nature would eventually win me over, and as an adult autumn in New England is one of my favorite times of year. As we adjusted to life in the sticks, my family explored the surrounding New England towns dotted with covered bridges, apple orchards, and once fall hit, vast vistas of brilliantly hued leaves. That summer we moved, leaving the congested highways and suburban developments of New Jersey, the only home I’d ever known, for a tiny New Hampshire village that had one general store and just one traffic light. When I was ten years old my father’s job was transferred from Central New Jersey to Southern New Hampshire. ![]()
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