For many, the season of Fall means pumpkin spice overload, well Boardroom Spirits, a Lansdale-based award-winning craft distillery, is here to break the stereotype with the launch of A, a red delicious apple eau de vie-style brandy and P, a pair of pear eau de vie style-brandies made from D’Anjou and Bartlett varietals. Both spirits were distilled entirely from their respective fruits in the style of Boardroom’s earlier endeavors, B, a 100% beet spirit and C, a 100% carrot spirit. Sold in their Lansdale, PA distillery and available online, A and P are expected to sell out as they were distilled in much smaller quantities than their predecessors.
“We’ve had our sights set on distilling seasonal fruits since opening in early 2016,” said Marat Mamedov, one of Boardroom’s three founders. “My brother, Vlad, and I are Armenian. My wife, Zsuzsa, is Hungarian. We come from families and cultures where brandy is a way of life.” ‘A’ and ‘P’ are the result of years of research, testing, and tasting and pays homage to pálinka, a traditional fruit brandy invented in the Middle Ages. Pálinka is geographically protected and still only distilled in Hungary and parts of Austria. “We’ve taken an ancient practice and married it with state-of-the-art equipment and technology to ensure and control quality, bringing a thoughtfully crafted crop of eaux de vie to market.”
A is distilled from Red Delicious apples grown at local Frecon Farms, just 20 miles west of Boardroom Spirits’ distillery. It takes seven to eight pounds of apples to distill one 375 ml bottle. The brandy captures the harvest-fresh aroma and flavor of the local apples. Each warming sip of 80 proof A transports the drinker to an apple orchard brimming with ripe fruit. Boardroom Spirits achieves this immersive flavor using a whole fruit, European method of distillation that consists of inspecting each apple, removing imperfections, grinding, fermenting, and finally distilling the apple mash. A is clear and smells of subtly sweet and crisp apples. Light and dry on the palate, drinkers will experience a silky, mineral feel that finishes clean and smooth with a long apple persistence and accents of spiced fall apples.
P uses two very different natural ingredients resulting in two distinctly unique products. Processed, distilled, and bottled completely separately, it pays tribute to noteworthy differences between the Bartlett and D’Anjou pear varietals. Each pear varietal adopts a persona that shines through in the finished products. Bold and with an aroma of fresh cut hay and crisp morning air, Bartlett smells distinctly of classic pears, while D’Anjou is soft and subtle with a mature aroma of late harvested pears. On the palate, Bartlett is light and medium-dry, bursting with bright, crisp fresh cut pear flavor. D’Anjou is also light bodied but semi-dry with a juicy, mouthwatering, sophisticated palate with touches of autumnal spice. As with all Boardroom Spirits products, there are no artificial flavors, colors, sugars, extracts, or preservatives added to A or P.
The flavors of A and P lend themselves to endless possibilities. Consumed alone, they make excellent aperitifs or digestives. They also play well with other alcohols to add a fruity dimension to cocktails or even incorporated into sauces to complement both savory (roast chicken with apple brandy gravy) or sweet (poached pears with a pear brandy reduction) dishes.
The bottles embrace the packaging already set forth by this line that embodies the periodic table of elements. Each spirit is represented by a single white letter against a color that corresponds with their root fruit. A is represented with a deep burgundy, while the P labels mirror the two pear varietals. D’Anjou is a bright, crisp yellow green while the Bartlett label gradually darkens from a vivid yellow to a warm red. The distillery deliberately depicts the product with translucent labeling in clear 375 ml bottles to showcase clarity and purity as part of their overall mission to stay as transparent about their process as they are about their products.
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