Fruit brandy and spirit, the fruit fermented or macerated
Fruit brandies made from pear, cherry, quince, and mirabelle plum stand at nur Gutes alongside spirits made from Sicilian citrus fruits, cucumber, beetroot, and spruce tips. The bottles come from six houses between the Kaiserstuhl and Bremen, and whatever matures in a wooden barrel turns golden.
Fruit brandy (Obstbrand) is made from fresh fruit that is fermented and then distilled, without added flavorings or additional alcohol. For a spirit (Geist), however, the raw ingredient is macerated unfermented in alcohol before distillation; this is how cucumber, beetroot, and spruce tips make their way into the bottle.
From Kirschwasser to Williams, spirits law dictates what a fruit brandy is called
The bottles on this shelf bear three names—brandy (Brand), spirit (Geist), and spirit drink (Spirituose)—and European law determines which one a bottle may carry. If you distinguish between a brandy and a spirit, you know whether the fruit fermented before distillation or was macerated in alcohol. Fruit brandy is distilled to less than 86% ABV so that the fruit's fragrance and flavor are preserved, and the same limit applies to macerated products.
You are not allowed to flavor a spirit either, and whatever does not meet any category is called a spirit drink. The Bremen distillery flavors its hazelnut spirit with cocoa and vanilla, which hang in a sieve inside the still while the nuts are being distilled. The Golden Pear and Golden Nut from STILVOL. carry the same name, as at 36% ABV and 32% ABV, they fall below the 37.5% ABV minimum required for a brandy or spirit.
The names within the categories are also regulated, as a brandy bears the name of its fruit, from pear brandy to quince brandy. Instead of ending in "-brand", it can also end in "-wasser" (water), which is why the cherry brandy from Faude can also be sold as Kirschwasser. A pear brandy may only be called "Williams" if it was distilled exclusively from Williams Christ pears.
If you distill two or more types of fruit together, the result is called fruit brandy (Obstbrand), or "Obstler" in everyday language. The wooden barrel fruit brandy from Lantenhammer, distilled from apples and pears, bears this name, and the house adds the term "Edelbrand" (fine brandy). In Austria, "Edelbrand" is a legal term for distillates from fermented liquids or mashes that retain the aroma of their raw material. In Germany, there is no uniform definition, and in trade, the word stands for high-quality fruit brandies.
For a spirit, which is called "fruit spirit" (Obstgeist) when made from fruit, the raw ingredient comes first in the name: cucumber spirit, sloe spirit, spruce tip spirit. In addition to fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, rose petals, or mushrooms may now be added to the alcohol. Finally, where a maturation period is indicated, it applies to the youngest component in the bottle.
Fine fruit brandies and spirits from blood orange to cucumber
The best-selling bottles come from Bötzingen am Kaiserstuhl, and at the front are two spirits from Sicily. For the blood orange spirit, Florian Faude macerates the fruit and peel of the Tarocco di Catania for a precisely measured time, expressly distinguishing it from blood orange brandy. The Ciaculli mandarins are picked by hand when fully ripe below Mount Etna. The blood orange tastes more complex, with notes of fruit and peel oil; the mandarin tastes fresher and with a fine acidity.
From the southern tip of Italy, Calabria, comes the bergamot, which smells like Earl Grey and tastes spicy. Between the citrus spirits is the pear brandy made from Williams Christ pears, harvested when fully ripe in a side valley of the southern Markgräflerland and sorted by hand. It tastes like a pear at the perfect moment while remaining lean.
The mirabelle plums come from Nancy, and their brandy is so lushly fragrant that one thinks of perfume. The cherry brandy made from Dollenseppler or Schwarzer Königin, grown on standard trees in the Markgräflerland, is reminiscent more of dark chocolate than cherry pit. Faude also distills vegetables, and the crooked cucumbers for the cucumber spirit grow on the island of Reichenau. It tastes dry and green, with an aftertaste as if you were standing in a cucumber patch.
The beetroot spirit, on the other hand, tastes of earth and finishes with a touch of sweetness. The garden raspberries for the raspberry spirit are picked by hand, in the Ortenau as well as in the Kaiserstuhl, and they are macerated in alcohol only briefly so that no bitterness from the seeds is extracted.
The Williams pear brandy from Bremen comes from Franconian meadow orchards, and its aroma includes fresh-cut grass and a hint of mint alongside the pear. For the quince brandy from the same distillery, apple and pear quinces ripen in private Bremen gardens; the wild raspberries for their wild raspberry spirit grow in the forests of Romania; and the hazelnut spirit is reminiscent of nougat.
From Werne come lemon, orange, and sloe spirits; the lemons and oranges are from Sicily, the sloes grow wild, and all three carry the organic control number DE-ÖKO-005. Spruce spirit and rosemary spirit come from STILVOL. in Laupheim, along with the two golden spirits made from pear and nut. Finally, from Hausham on Lake Schliersee comes a fruit brandy that has matured in a wooden barrel.
The fruit decides, then brandy or spirit, finally the maturation
At nur Gutes, one chooses a fruit brandy in three steps, and the first concerns the fruit, because that is what your glass will ultimately taste like. The choice includes pome fruit like pear, quince, and apple; stone fruit like cherry and mirabelle plum; plus berries, citrus fruits, and wild sloe; vegetables; spruce; rosemary; and hazelnut.
The second question is whether the fruit was fermented or macerated, and often the first question already answers this. Citrus fruits are available here exclusively as spirits, cherry, mirabelle, and quince as brandy, and raspberry as a spirit from garden or forest fruit. The pear comes as a brandy or, with macerated pieces, as a spirit drink; the hazelnut as a spirit drink.
Finally, maturation is the deciding factor, which is revealed by the color. "Clear" on this shelf means no wood; "golden to amber" means barrel, macerated fruit, or caramelized nut. This results in the rule by which nur Gutes sorts its fruit brandies: the fruit decides, then brandy or spirit, and finally the maturation.
The barrels provide the color here, such as chestnut wood for an apple brandy from Schlat, which turns it amber and spicy. The wooden barrel fruit brandy from Lantenhammer, on the other hand, is aged in French Limousin oak and glows golden, and in flavor it remains true to apple and pear, long after the sip.
The Golden Pear owes its color to the fruit itself, as hand-cut pear pieces macerate for months in its pear brandy, from which it becomes golden and sweeter. For the Golden Nut, the gold comes from caramelized hazelnuts, and it tastes soft and slightly sweet.
How much the raw material matters is shown by the spruce, which is available here in two versions. The spruce tip spirit from Faude is the lighter of the two, spicy and with a hint of lemon, while in the spruce spirit from STILVOL., for which wood and needles are macerated, resin and fresh wood set the tone.
In Werne, lemon and orange lie side by side; the lemon is zesty and scented with its peel, the orange is denser and semi-dry. And the raspberry tastes rich and dry from the garden, and purer, with a trace of forest floor, from the forest.
The fruits come from the neighbor, from the forest, or from Sicily
Florian Faude's blood oranges and mandarins grow in Sicily; the young beetroot for his vegetable spirit, however, comes from a farmer in Bötzingen, where he makes his brandies and spirits from the Kaiserstuhl. Fresh from the field, it is macerated in grain alcohol, and he doesn't leave it there for long before distilling it.
Birgitta Schulze van Loon transparently calculates how much fruit is in a bottle at her Bremen distillery. Calculated at 40% ABV, she obtains 2.5 liters of distillate from 100 liters of quince mash. For the wild raspberry spirit, she puts 500 kilos of berries into 100 liters of neutral alcohol—two and a half kilos for every liter of spirit. Her Williams Christ pears are fermented in a controlled manner under exclusion of oxygen before passing through small copper stills.
Theres and Georg Glitz-Ehringhausen run a grain distillery in Werne, so they also macerate their spirits in their own grain brandy. Sloes and lemon peels macerate in it, and every lemon is peeled by hand for this purpose.
Behind the spirits from Baden-Württemberg are small distillers in the region, and one of them is Erich, Jessica Ludwig's grandfather at STILVOL. He has been growing his own fruit on his farm for decades and distilling it there himself.
For his blackcurrant in a Madeira barrel, Jörg Geiger in Schlat sources the berries from the Läpple family in Hattenhofen, where they grow on Jurassic shale in the Swabian Alb foothills. The manufactory needs around 50 kilograms of blackcurrants per liter of pure distillate, and afterward, the brandy matures for at least three years in a Madeira barrel, turning it golden yellow.
In Hausham on Lake Schliersee, Thomas Weinberger and Tobias Maier manage the distillery from which the wooden barrel fruit brandy originates. There, apples and pears are mashed gently, because aroma releases slowly from uninjured cells.
Neat before dessert or long with tonic, the cucumber spirit can do both
For some bottles, the producer provides the serving temperature. Serve the sloe and orange spirits from Werne at 16 to 20 °C, both before and after a meal; serve the spruce spirit, rosemary spirit, Golden Pear, and Golden Nut from Laupheim at room temperature.
For a long drink, pour 4 cl of cucumber spirit over ice and top with 10 cl of tonic, adding a slice of cucumber and some dill. The blood orange spirit becomes a Collins, the rosemary spirit a Spritz or Mule, the Golden Pear a "Willi Tonic," the Golden Nut a "Nutty White Russian," and the wild raspberry spirit a "Raspberry Mojito."
The mandarin spirit likes to be served neat, shortly before dessert arrives, and you should serve the cucumber spirit equally neat between the main course and dessert, as its own little course. The table is still set, the candles have burned down a bit, and a short, clear sip fits perfectly into this pause.
The wooden barrel fruit brandy is a digestif and waits until the cheese has been cleared away and the coffee is steaming. Keep an opened bottle from Laupheim in a cool, dark place. If you prefer things sweet, you will find fruit again among the fruit liqueurs, where it is rounded off with sugar.
Fruit brandy has its season, from spruce tip to winter punch
The young spruce tips for Faude are picked in early summer in Bad Peterstal in the Black Forest. Hardly any time passes between picking and distilling, and the bottle captures those very weeks. Throughout the summer, the cucumber spirit with tonic sits on the terrace, and the citrus spirits keep it company. In winter, the wooden barrel fruit brandy joins tea on cold days or goes into punch.
Fine fruit brandy is gifted at any time of year, and the size follows the occasion. From Werne come 200 ml bottles as a small gift, from Bremen and Hausham 350 ml, and from the Kaiserstuhl and Laupheim 500 ml. Bring the cucumber spirit to a summer party, and for someone who thinks they know every brandy, try the beetroot spirit.
In the end, the fruit decides which bottle it will be, and those who know how to read the names already know its journey before opening. Only the first sip will tell you what it tastes like.
