{"id":477,"date":"2021-11-11T12:50:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T12:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2021\/11\/brandy-trivia-part-3.html"},"modified":"2021-11-11T12:50:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T12:50:00","slug":"brandy-trivia-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=477","title":{"rendered":"Brandy Trivia! Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

As seen here earlier<\/a>, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about brandy. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there, and click on smaller images to embiggen them.<\/p>\n

7.  Slivovitz, \u021auic\u0103, eau-de-vie de Quetsche, and Mirabelle brandies are made from what fruit?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[PLUMS<\/span>]<\/p>\n

Fruit eaux-de-vie<\/em> are a big part of the brandy universe, though grape brandies tend to get most of the attention. Central and Eastern Europe are especially known for their fruit brandies (though Oregon\u2019s Clear Creek brandies<\/a> are extraordinary – covered here<\/a> several years ago), and other giants of the form include Poire Williams<\/a> and Kirchwasser<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you recognized the varietal names of Mirabelle<\/a> or Quetsche<\/a> [plums<\/span>], this was an easy in, and slivovitz<\/a> can be amazingly good. \u021auic\u0103<\/a> is [plum<\/span>] brandy from Romania, and I still want to taste that sometime.<\/p>\n

8.  What brand of Cognac does Jay-Z partially own, together with Bacard\u00ed? He reps it enthusiastically, drinking it out of a Grammy in 2013, and mentioning it in several tracks: (Note: NSFW lyrics)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jay-Z Cognac montage<\/a><\/p>\n

[D\u2019USS\u00c9<\/span>]<\/p>\n

I wanted to include a question that touched on Cognac's popularity among the African-American community<\/a> and specifically<\/a> within hip-hop culture<\/a>, and there are certainly a ton of Hennessy<\/a> (and to some extent R\u00e9my Martin<\/a> and Courvoisier<\/a>) mentions that seemed fairly obvious. I thought Jay-Z\u2019s partial ownership of D\u2019uss\u00e9<\/span><\/a> (produced by Otard, a subsidiary of Bacard\u00ed), provided an interesting in, and he certainly has embraced the brand; here he is drinking it out of a Grammy<\/a> as mentioned in the question.<\/p>\n

The montage was fun to put together and consists of, in order, excerpts from Hova\u2019s \u201cPart II (On the Run)<\/a>\u201d, his verse on Justin Timberlake\u2019s \u201cSuit & Tie<\/a>\u201d, his \u201cF.U.T.W.<\/a>\u201d, his verse on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s \u201cDrunk In Love<\/a>\u201d, and his verse on Rick Ross\u2019s \u201cThe Devil Is a Lie<\/a>.\u201d I tried to find lyrics that would lead you to \u201cD\u2019uss\u00e9<\/span>\u201d with the rhymes, assonance, or wordplay. (Here<\/a> are just a few more mentions.)<\/p>\n

9.  The Sidecar, a perfect marriage of Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice, is arguably the most famous brandy cocktail. An ancestor of the Sidecar, though, has been called \u201cthe absolute pinnacle of the nineteenth-century bartender\u2019s art.\u201d It\u2019s kind of halfway between an Old-Fashioned and a Sidecar, and is possibly named for its glass\u2019s sugared rim; what word has been redacted from the following recipe?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"[Image<\/p>\n

[CRUSTA<\/span>]<\/p>\n

The Brandy Crusta<\/span><\/a> is a great drink that really lets the Cognac shine, but also accents it with the Cointreau and just a splash of lemon juice. The drink is from 1840<\/a> and Joseph Santini, manager of the City Exchange bar in New Orleans. The picture and recipe cited here are from the 1862 edition of The Bar-Tender\u2019s Guide: How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant\u2019s Companion<\/em><\/a> by Jerry Thomas, the first bartending book published in America. The [Crusta<\/span>] rates one of only a handful of illustrations in the entire book, no doubt because of its striking presentation with the full lemon peel and the sugared rim.<\/p>\n

The quote dubbing it "the absolute pinnacle of the nineteenth-century bartender's art" comes from this great piece<\/a> by drinks historian David Wondrich, the<\/em> authority on pre-Prohibition drinks (and a good deal more besides), and it's worth reading in full. (And you can go here<\/a> to watch Dr. Wondrich prepare a Brandy [Crusta<\/span>], in a video from Google Play when they released an enhanced edition of Thomas's book<\/a> with added commentary.)<\/p>\n

Later on, the Sidecar would evolve – it\u2019s something like a daisy, a sour with a liqueur added<\/a>, but also something like the Fancy Brandy Cocktail<\/a>, which was essentially an Old-Fashioned cocktail made with brandy, but in a fancier glass and with a piece of lemon peel added. The Sidecar increases the amount of lemon juice, and possibly borrows its sugared rim from the [Crusta<\/span>].<\/p>\n

But let me encourage you to try a Brandy Crusta<\/span><\/a> if you haven\u2019t had one, as they really are wonderful. (I think I\u2019ve run across them on a menu in only a couple bars – it\u2019s made my day each time.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As seen here earlier, I recently put together a trivia quiz all about brandy. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there, and click […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ingredients","category-seen-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}