Copper & Kings started off sourcing high-quality pot-distilled brandies from all over the country and creating their own unique spirits from them by further aging, finishing, and blending them to meet their desired flavor profiles. While they are distilling their own brandies now, it seems they have not completely stopped hunting for brandy treasures elsewhere (or at least they hadn’t as of late 2018 when this hit shelves). According to the proprietor of C&K, this is “sourced pure Oregon Pear Brandy. Average age is over 10 years with the oldest first distilled in 1996. It was aged in a variety of barrels. We blended it together and have it being polished in toasted, uncharted new American oak barrels. The barrels are 60 gallons (wine barrel size). We wanted the barrels to integrate the profile, and pear brandy is very, very delicate – so everything we do with pear will be uncharred.” The distillery is not disclosed but it is thought to have been a recently shuttered distillery that obviously needed to offload their stock (possibly Brandy Peak Distillery in Brookings, OR, but can’t be sure). Once the source brandy was all blended and allowed to meld in the 60-gallon barrels, each barrel was sold off as a single cask. Since my beloved K&L decided not to purchase a cask of this, I had to slum it and head to BevMo.
Smell: Pear skins followed closely by some funky Marc or grappa notes and then some soggy wood. If I didn’t know anything about the provenance I would guess this was distilled from fermented pear skins.
Taste: Concentrated, intense pear skin completely envelops the palate. There’s also a hint of clove, but it is really all about the pear here. If I listed anything else I’d be reaching. Nice, full mouthfeel. Drinkable and enjoyable at full strength.
Finish: More of a whole pear thing going on here with both the skin and the juicy flesh, but it’s still fairly tannic and mouth-drying. At the end is a slightly oxidative note that I usually get from wine- or sherry-finished spirits and which I don’t usually like but works ok here.
Overall: It’s hard to overstate how much this spirit captures the essence of fresh, ripe pears. It’s also hard to rate something this unique. The lack of depth would be an issue in most spirits but here, if there was more depth, it would probably taste less like pears. Would I rather it have more going on but not capture the pear flavor as well? No, I wouldn’t. I wish I could have tried the individual parts/casks before they were all blended together, it would have been interesting to taste and smell how it all came together.
Spirit Type: Other Brandy
Proof: 109
Vintage:
Age:
Cask Type: French Oak (Reused)
Rating: B+