The Liquid Apple

Apples have always given moralists a bad time. Other fruits, like the plum and the pomegranate, have been red, but the apple has always been blushing red.

When the progenitor of the human race and his playmate took bites of the fleshy fruit, they were instantly given a sign of thumbs down.

Even the serene Greeks went into a pucker over a certain apple. The gods (continued on page 50)Liquid Apple(continued from page 29) had assembled for a marriage ceremony. Everything was going as slick as grease until an uninvited lass, Eris, threw an apple into the party. Three beauties – Hera, Athena and Aphrodite – each claimed possession of the ball. In the ensuing argument, Paris was asked to referee the squabble. Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite, thereby starting the ruckus that led to the Trojan war, the fall of Troy, and several bad movies.

The Greek story was another one of the classical apple myths. But the implication of such myths, namely, that all the evil in the world is derived from an apple (i.e., something pleasurable) is a point of view that Playboy regards as pure applesauce. The Greeks should have blamed envy – not the sweet apple – for their discord.

The Romans were a little wiser than the Greeks. They called the apple pomum, meaning something to drink, apparently alluding to its nectar-like flavor. They were on the right track, but even they never realized the full potentialities of the ruddy fruit.

In the middle ages, the apple tree, like the Maypole, had become a popular fertility symbol. English farmers didn't merely prune and water their apple trees, but poured ale over them in the happy ritual known as wassailing. Even among the primitives, the apple had become a symbol of love and impulsiveness. Women of the Kara Kirgiz tribe ran to apple trees and rolled under their branches with admirable abandon to make themselves fecund.

However, it was only after America had been discovered for several centuries that the apple finally came into its own supreme form. In Europe, chemists and druggists had been developing the art of distillation. All over the colonies, farmers were crushing apples to make cider. Some of the farmers, like George Washington, had been fermenting their apple juice into hard cider, a beverage with the alcoholic content of wine. James Madison was so appreciative of the nutritional value of hard cider that he drank a glass of it each morning before breakfast. Then somebody put hard cider into a still, and applejack was born. It was called, quite correctly, apple brandy before it was known as applejack. Among the earliest producers of the heady drink was Samuel E. Laird of Monmouth County. New Jersey, to whom George Washington wrote asking for the Laird applejack recipe. To this day the Laird lineage is still carrying on the ancestral art of apple squeezing.

Although the Apple of Discord is for-gotten, modern applejack myths still keep flying thick and fast. The young ladies, for instance, who made up the corps of ballet swimmers in Guy Lombardo's Arabian Nights at Jones Beach last summer were noted not only for their grace and skill in the water but also for the considerable ocean of liquid apple that they consumed. Applejack was the chosen drink, according to one chronicler, for three reasons. In the first place, the drink was supposed to have preserved the sheen of the girls' hair no matter how many times they dove into the water. In the second place, applejack kept them slim because it contained less calories than other hard liquor. In the third place, it did not produce hangover effects. Playboy's Department of Press Agents' Dreams has investigated each of the above claims. Applejack has less caloric content than whiskey. But the difference is so small, two percent at the most, as to be insignificant. The other claims are quite unsubstantiated.

Then there is the abnormal sale of applejack at Princeton, N.J. For over a year now the Nassau boys have been regaling local bartenders with stories of the aphrodisiac effects of applejack, especially the Algonquin cocktail containing 2 ounces of applejack, 2 tablespoons of mashed baked apple and 1 teaspoon of sugar. After extensive inductive and deductive observations made in its own private laboratory, playboy has come to a definite conclusion. The Algonquin is not an aphrodisiac, more's the pity.

But while the myths are unimportant, applejack itself is a wonderful source of sheer flowing pleasure. To those young men who haven't had extensive experience with the distillation of Eve's fruit, we are happy now to offer a brief orientation course in the processing of the liquid apple.

Like the first whiskey distilled in America, the essence of apple was originally not the smooth apple drink we know today. According to legend, old barflies spat it out and it burned holes in the floor. They called the 120 proof liquor "essence of lockjaw," "corpse reviver" and "horn of gunpowder." It was an extremely popular drink at funerals, so popular in fact that colonial heirs were sometimes thrown into bankruptcy because of the large quantities of apple that flowed down the throats of mourners. Eventually the drink became known as Jersey Lightning since most of it was made in New Jersey and since it was necessary to distinguish it from White Lightning, the colorless corn liquor made in the South.

During Prohibition, applejack unfortunately acquired a stigma which is only now being lived down. In the Twenties, any farmer with a few apple trees and a rusty still could make his rough apple rotgut. Most of it was uncut and unaged, except for the small private stock that some venerable applemen kept in their cellars for their own personal use. Sometimes the rough applejack was mixed with straight alcohol and water. Sometimes it was a complete fraud, made up of alcohol, water and artificial apple flavoring. But it was easy to come by, and during Prohibition it flowed as freely as bathtub gin.

Homemade applejack was sometimes made by simply freezing hard cider. The water in the liquid turned to ice while the alcohol, which remained unfrozen, was then siphoned off for a crude form of applejack. It was strictly for squirrel shooters.

Because of this delinquent past, applejack is sometimes a misunderstood liquor. Some older people simply refuse to drink it, remembering the days of Pussyfoot Johnson and the snapneck apple peddled by bootleggers. For a few years after Prohibition, a lot of applejack, while carefully distilled, was sold comparatively unaged. It bore little resemblance to the four-year-old applejack now available – a subtle, serious and fine liquor.

Modern applejack is a brandy made by crushing apples, straining the juice, fermenting it until it becomes wine and then distilling it until it is hard liquor. When distilled, it is about 120 proof. It is then aged in charred oak barrels in bonded warehouses for approximately four years. After the aging process, it is cut with pure well water down to 100 proof or 84 proof and bottled.

Any good ripe apple can be used to make applejack. As a matter of actual practice a number of apple varieties are combined in order to get a uniform flavor year after year. Since apples vary from one year to the next and since two apples from the same tree will sometimes be dissimilar in flavor, the choice of apples is one of the first significant steps in applejack making. The aroma of sweet apples must be balanced with the tartness of acid apples. Sometimes apples from orchards in two or three different states are combined for the initial blend.

In the distilleries, the professional applejack tasters, unlike wine tasters who merely roll the wine around in their mouth and then spit it out, must actually swallow the hard liquor to judge it apropriately. Applejack tasters perform their work in two sessions, one at 11 A.M. and another at 4 P.M. At each session they are able to taste six types of applejack. After the sixth swallow, any conclusions which they form aren't of much value.

The soul of a good applejack is a certain blend of tartness and smoothness. While good applejack is mellow, there's a pleasant astringency that keeps the flavor from becoming monotonous in the sense that thick sweet cordials often grow monotonous.

One of the most intriguing things about applejack is that it actually bears the fragrance and flavor of the original fruit. Rye whiskey doesn't taste like rye nor does corn whiskey taste like corn, but applejack carries all the sultry fragrance of a cellarful of Winesaps. After you drink applejack, the slow glow of the aftertaste lingers in the back of your mouth like the remembrance of a real apple – with a mellow difference.

A novice may sometimes have to educate his taste buds and nostrils to the new sensation. But once learned, applejack drinking becomes a delightful addiction. You'll want to return to the lively flavor, like eating apples right off the tree, hard and bubbling with juice (concluded on page 72)Liquid Apple(continued from page 50) at every bite.

The biggest applejack producers in the country are Laird & Co., Scobeyville, N.J. John Evans Laird, Jr., heads the firm which has been distilling apples in New Jersey for 176 years. The Laird and Hildick labels represent about 95 percent of all the applejack now being bottled. Besides the four-year-old applejack sold by Laird & Co. in both the 84 proof and 100 proof versions, the same firm puts out a superb seven-year-old applejack. Two other distinguished brands are Stone Mountain, a seven-year-old brandy and Stewart's, an eight-year-old distillation.

Undoubtedly, the most distinguished apple brandy in the world is Calvados from the Normandy section of France. Here again a certain rationale must be made. Many young men who were in action in France during World War II tasted the homemade Calvados and promptly swore to climb on the water wagon without delay. The Normandy Lightning was, if anything, more vile and more vitriolic than the illicit applejack made in the States during Prohibition. But the genuine Calvados now selling for about six to seven dollars a bottle is a meticulously prepared brandy aged about ten years. It warms you with a mellow fruit flavor that rivals France's finest cognacs. When taken in a brandy snifter, Calvados is an incomparably fine after-dinner drink. Heartily recommended is the Arc De Triomphe imported by Twenty One Brands.

Applejack drinks like applejack highball, apple-on-the-rocks, apple and ginger ale, etc., are prepared in the same manner as whiskey drinks. Others (which we'll describe in a moment) are a bitÈmore complex. Not too complex, however, for we're of the opinion that too many applejack recipes suffer from a plethora of fruit flavor. Straight applejack has such a rich fruity fragrance it's almost a cocktail in itself. Accompaniments like lemon juice and grenadine should be played down. Then when the cocktail is poured into the glass, the naturalness of the drink will be preserved. Almost any applejack mixed drink is enhanced with a dash or two of bitters.

Angostura bitters or orange bitters not only blend beautifully with applejack but help to present it as a real apertif.

For Maytime drinking, playboy suggests the following versions of the liquid apple:

Applejack Cocktail

2 ounces of applejack

2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Lemon peel

Sparkling water

Pour bitters into an Old Fashioned glass. Add the applejack. Fill glass with ice. Add a dash of sparkling water. Stir well. Twist lemon peel over drink.

Jack Rose Cocktail

2 ounces of applejack

Juice of 1/2 large lime

1 teaspoon grenadine

Pour ingredients into cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Shake well. Strain into cocktail glass. Two tablespoons lemon juice may be substituted for the lime juice.

Applejack Sour

2 ounces of applejack

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar (to taste)

Sparkling water

Put the applejack, lemon juice and sugar in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Shake well. Strain into a Delmonico glass. Add a dash of sparkling water. Do not decorate the glass with added fruit.

Applejack Manhattan

2 ounces of applejack

1 ounce of Italian vermouth

2 dashes of orange bitters

Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Stir well. Strain into cocktail glass. Serve with a stem cherry if desired.

Applejack Rabbit

2 ounces of applejack

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon orange juice

1 teaspoon maple syrup

Shake well with cracked ice in cocktail shaker. Strain into cocktail glass.

Applecar

1 ounce of applejack

1 ounce of Cointreau

1 ounce of lemon juice

Shake well with cracked ice in cocktail shaker. Strain into cocktail glass. The applecar is, of course, a variation of the sidecar. Any white Curacao may be used in place of Cointreau.

Applejack Collins

2 ounces of applejack

1 teaspoon powdered sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 dashes of orange bitters

Sparkling water

Shake all ingredients except sparkling water in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Pour unstrained into a Tom Collins glass. Fill with sparkling water and stir.