Brandy Cocktails

Brandy is distilled wine, and before whiskey took over it was the default cocktail base. That history is why so many of the oldest recipes call for it: the Sidecar, the Brandy Crusta, the Between the Sheets and the Corpse Reviver all predate the drinks most people would name first.

It brings stone fruit, dried grape and a little oak, which means it sits closer to an aged rum than to a whiskey and it takes citrus better than either. The Sidecar is the proof: brandy, orange liqueur and lemon, and nothing else needed.

Cognac is brandy from one region of France and is what a recipe usually means when it specifies. Ordinary brandy works in almost all of them, and in anything long you will not be able to tell.