Quince Brandy

Quince Brandy by Piekfeine Brände from Bremen's private gardens

Quince Brandy by Piekfeine Brände is a clear fine brandy made from apple and pear quinces harvested in private gardens in Bremen. It is distilled twice in small copper stills, each batch is assessed individually, and it is bottled at 40% ABV.

Quince Brandy is the clear fine brandy from Piekfeine Brände in Bremen, distilled by Birgitta Schulze van Loon from apple and pear quinces. The fruit comes from private gardens in the city, and the distillate is bottled at 40% ABV in a 350 ml bottle – a brandy whose raw material can hardly be bought anymore.

Lemon, vanilla, and the scent of the fruit bowl

Anyone who has ever had a ripe quince lying in a room knows this scent: floral, lemony, a little like vanilla, and it fills the whole room.

That is exactly what you find in the glass. The brandy is fruity, floral, and lemony, with a fine, ethereal sharpness that lingers for a long time at the end. It is not sweet.

Raw, the quince is inedibly hard and tart, cooked it becomes jelly, but distilled it gives up its aroma unadulterated. That is why distillers consider it one of the most difficult and at the same time most rewarding fruits.

It is old, too: the quince has been cultivated for more than 4,000 years and was well known in ancient Greece when the apple was still a marginal fruit. It has almost disappeared from kitchens because it takes work – peeling, cutting, cooking, none of it is quick.

After dinner, with cheese, in the kitchen

It goes into the glass at around 18 degrees Celsius, because if it is too cold, the quince closes up its floral tone. 2 cl is enough; this brandy does not want to be knocked back.

After a long meal it stands on its own, with aged hard cheese it is a serious companion, and next to a piece of apple cake it does what a good fruit brandy should do. The brandy likes autumnal food: game, roast goose, prunes, anything with clove and bay leaf.

In the kitchen, a spoonful is enough to lift a quince jelly or a baked apple. If you prefer pear in your glass, reach for the Williams Pear Brandy from the same house.

Quinces from the gardens next door

This brandy is made from apple and pear quinces from private gardens in Bremen, in other words from trees that nobody farms commercially.

That is not marketing but simply the supply situation: quinces are hardly grown in orchards anymore, but they stand in old home gardens, where they are harvested year after year and rarely used. Anyone who wants to distill them has to go and ring doorbells.

Two varieties come together here, and they complement each other well. The apple quince is rounder, harder, and more acidic, the pear quince longer, softer, and milder in tone. Distilled together, they yield more than either would on its own – acidity and scent from one, fullness from the other.

The mash then runs twice through small copper stills, in a stripping run and a spirit run, with each batch assessed individually. Flavorings are deliberately left out of the fine brandies, says Birgitta Schulze van Loon – the brandy is diluted only with soft Bremen water. You can find the entire range at Piekfeine Brände, and the wild berry is showcased by the Wild Raspberry Spirit.