Harvest Series Returns with the release of “Farm Schnapps” Blueberry Brandy
Our latest “Harvest Series” experimental spirit was years in the making using estate-grown Victoria Island Farms Blueberries harvested, fermented & distilled during the 2022 summer blueberry season. The California fruit brandy started as an experiment in order to transform thousands of pounds of freshly harvested blueberries that weren’t quite pretty enough to hit the supermarket shelves but had plenty of juicy fruit flavor and sugar to ferment into a blueberry wine. We crushed the fruit, allowed the yeast to do its magic and once the wine was ready we ran a double distillation before laying down the new-make spirit in smaller format barrels that were previously assigned to infuse our Bourbon Barrel Honey. This approach allowed us to not only extract more American Oak influence in a shorter period of time but to introduce a light streak of honey throughout. It was then finished with additional oak stave maturation from a combination of oak profiles to introduce greater depth of flavor.
The end result is this batch one of one barrel-aged brandy featuring notes of fresh fruit complemented by streaks of honey, cinammon, sugared oak and bourbon vanilla with a round warm finish.
What makes a spirit a brandy, quick primer:
While the vast majority of common brandy styles are made from grapes, a “brandy” is technically any distilled spirit where the base ingredient (i.e. sugar used for fermentation) is fruit. By comparison, a “whiskey” is a distilled spirit made from grain. In our case we made a fruit brandy with estate-grown California blueberries that gained additional flavor and color through the oak barrel maturation process.
What is schnapps?
The common use of the term is derived from German in which it broadly means, “spirit drinks.” Further, it owes its roots to the German term “schnappen” referring to a quick snap or shot of a spirit (oftentimes following a good meal). In America the spirit has taken on many forms, though most commonly it is associated with an un-aged liqueur owing its flavor to the infusion of fresh fruit in a distilled neutral spirit. However the traditional European method of making and enjoying schnapps more commonly was used to describe a fruit brandy in which the alcohol was fermented from the base fruit and then distilled as we have done with this spirit. In general it is a broad category that can describe many different styles of spirits.
Why Schnapps? While it is indeed a fruit brandy made from blueberries it was also barrel-aged in American oak, which is less common among the “schnapps” set. That said, with a category label as wide ranging as schnapps and the introduction of a new spirit unlike any we’ve seen, we thought it only fitting to also carry its own style of naming and thus, “Farm” Schnapps” was born.
This first of its kind product was a labor of love to produce that was not short on the labor required to convert a half ton of blueberries into an estate-grown wine, and then a barrel-aged brandy. We are excited to share the fruits of this labor with you now but don’t be surprised if this limited batch is one of one! Grab your bottles while supplies last, and please enjoy your Sabbatical.
