How To Drink Brandy Like A True Connoisseur

Brandy is a spirit that can be both a homely tipple and a connoisseur's passion. On the bottom shelf, it's a punchy addition to desserts. The top shelf, however, offers aficionados endless opportunities for enjoyment, exploration, and inspiration. 

At its simplest, brandy is a spirit distilled from fermented fruit. Think wine, given the whiskey treatment. By developing your understanding of the key factors that influence its flavor, texture, color, and production, you can learn how to drink brandy like a true connoisseur. A healthy working knowledge of brandy's history, traditions, and the nuts and bolts of connoisseurship is also essential when taking your appreciation of the spirit to the next level.  

Having worked as a brand ambassador and marketer in spirits for several years, I've run my fair share of training sessions and masterclasses. Several questions always arise when people want to level up their experience with their drink of choice. There's a lot to learn in the historic world of brandy, but a straightforward guide can turn a casual sipper into a genuine connoisseur.

The most fundamental characteristic of brandy is its base spirit, specifically, the fermented fruit from which it's distilled. The vast majority of brandies are distilled from fermented grapes, but it can be made from almost any sugar-dense fruit. Non-grape brandies are distilled from fruit wine, cider, or fermented fruit mash, and must be labeled as fruit brandies. Unaged, these can be labeled as eau de vie, meaning water of life.

Common fruits for brandies to be made from are apples (like France's calvados and applejack in the U.S.), pears, cherries, and plums. These each present characteristics of their base fruit, reflecting and concentrating its flavor and aromas. 

Distillers can also choose between types of still, most commonly column or copper pot stills. Column stills provide for a continual distillation of spirits, while copper pots offer a more traditional batch-based process. The latter technique results in many flavor compounds remaining intact throughout the distillation, while column stills can produce a more neutral flavor profile. Multiple distillations can further refine a spirit's flavor and texture.

As with wine, the time that brandy spends in barrels has a profound effect on its flavor, as does the type of oak used. The longer a brandy rests in oak barrels, the more it can mellow in flavor, darken in color, and absorb the wood's toasty, nutty, or spicy notes. French oak barrels lend elegant characteristics of honey, vanilla, and nuts. American oak barrels can provide bolder influences, such as notes of tobacco, coconut, or cocoa.

One of the more enjoyable ways to continue refining your palate is by keeping a wide variety of brandies from a range of categories. With a well-stocked home bar, you can revisit, compare, and reconsider your brandies in relation to each other. By regularly observing the intricate differences between the textures, colors, aromas, and flavors your brandies express, you can learn through experience. This can also help to sharpen your palate and expand your appreciation of the spirit over time.

For a home bar with prestige, include at least one or two of the best cognac brands in your lineup. Hennessy is a recognizable brand that offers affordable entry-level mainstays of many connoisseurs' home bars. Martell and Rémy Martin's X.O. selections are highly refined top-shelf bottles for those special occasions. For armagnac, the Darroze brand produces both introductory brandies, such as the eight-year-old Les Grands Assemblages, and prestigious brandies that reach into thousands of dollars in value.

Peruvian piscos and Italian grappas can add variety to the lineup of regional grape brandies in a connoisseur's repertoire. Connoisseurs of brandy may also keep types outside of the grape brandy family. For example, keeping calvados and applejack brandy in stock can represent apple brandies in your cabinet.

Discussion of brandy connoisseurs evokes images of sophisticated individuals swirling brandy around wide, tulip-shaped glasses with short stems resting in the palms of their hands. These glasses are known as snifters or brandy balloons. There are several reasons why these glasses enhance the brandy experience, and why they've become the preferred way to enjoy the spirit. The wide diameter of brandy snifters allows more surface area of the brandy to be exposed to air. This creates more opportunity for the liquid's volatile aromas to evaporate, so they can be inhaled. The tapered-in rim keeps these aromatic compounds within the glass, making this tulip shape highly effective at freeing aromas from the liquid, but not from the vessel. A typical serve is 1.5 ounces.

Experienced aficionados know that swirling the brandy also serves a purpose. Coating the walls of the glass creates another opportunity to evaporate more liquid and express more of the brandy's aromas. Placing the bowl of the glass in the palm of your hand helps to keep it close to body temperature, which better allows these volatile compounds to be expressed from the liquid.

Conversely, Italian grappa is typically served in a small glass, with a long stem, and a narrow bowl that tapers in before widening to the rim. This design directs and concentrates the aromas while preventing the drinker's hand from altering the liquid's temperature.

It's one thing to collect and enjoy a range of fine, diverse, or interesting brandies, but storing them is a skill all true connoisseurs require. Correct storage of brandy, whether expensive or not, means keeping them in ideal condition for as long as possible.

Light exposure can damage spirits over time, so it's important to choose somewhere dark to store your brandy. Similarly, heat can negatively affect the quality of brandy, so finding somewhere cool (but not excessively cold) to store your liquid gold is equally essential. Ensure that the temperature in your chosen storage site is consistent, never rising or falling too drastically or rapidly.

Dampness can also be a bottle's enemy and can compromise its seal, as well as its label. A moldy label can also certainly be a bad look for a connoisseur's top-shelf cognac. Putting thought into the conditions of your brandy's storage can mean maintaining the spirit's integrity, so you can enjoy it for longer. In general, the qualities that make for an effective wine cellar can also help you preserve your brandies.

Knowing how to drink brandy like a connoisseur means knowing how to taste spirits. Wine aficionados are characteristically known for slurping air through gurgling mouthfuls. This technique draws air through the wine, at once aerating the liquid and allowing aromas and flavors to enter the back palate and sinuses for a fuller, more comprehensive experience. With spirits, however, doing this creates a fiery sensation throughout the mouth, hindering the taster's ability to perceive flavor and texture while scorching the sinuses.

To taste brandy as effectively as possible, you can still use air to enhance the flavor and aroma of the liquid, but differently than wine connoisseurs do. Start by taking a sip of brandy about the size of a teaspoon. Without opening your mouth or letting any air in, move the liquid around the entirety of your mouth, allowing it to coat every corner. Your saliva will begin to dilute the brandy and break up its oils. Start investigating the tasting notes that emerge. Consider what fruits you can taste. Try to discern flavors from the oak, such as vanilla or coconut.

Finally, swallow before breathing in through your mouth and out through your nose. You should experience a burst of flavor as the air that rushes into your sinuses carries aromatic vapor to your olfactory receptors. Now engaging the full power of your sense of smell in conjunction with your taste buds, analyze any notes you can detect in the brandy.

Brandy is generous with flavor, making it an exciting tipple with which to pair food. Identifying the tastiest pairings can help elevate your experience of the brandy you drink by finding foods that highlight the beverage's shining qualities.

Higher alcohol content means that food high in fat creates a rewarding contrast, as brandy's alcohol cuts through and balances out pairings like cheese or cured meats. Creamy cheeses such as Brie or Camembert also pair spectacularly with almost any brandy.  For blue cheese lovers, brandy's perceived sweetness and power make it a delicious match against the cheese's strong, earthy flavor. This is especially true for brandies with heightened fruity characteristics.

Some pairings work by way of complementing each other, such as using fresh fruit to match some brandies' riper notes. Soak pears in brandy for a fruity twist on your cocktail or dessert, while a little splash goes a long way in fruit pies and desserts like trifles.

Experimentation is the best way to discover pairings that resonate with your preferences. These can be old-school pairings, such as fine cigars, or more contemporary accompaniments, like types of chocolate.