Whenever you hear the words Brandy, Cognac or Whisky, a huge guy with a big Cuban cigar comes to mind. This is because they are associated with wealth and class. Often times people find it difficult to even differentiate or distinguish between the drinks, as they have similar tastes.
Below are the differences between these spirits.
Brandy
Brandy is short for “Brandywine” and it is produced by distilling wine and ageing it in wooden casks to mature for drinking. Sometimes caramel colouring is added to the drink to imitate the effects of ageing, while some brandy drinks are produced with a combination of both ageing and colouring. Brandy contains about 30 to 60 % alcohol per volume and it’s usually taken after dinner as digestifs.
Varieties of Brandy
- Armenian brandy
- Armagnac
- Cognac
- Cyprus brandy
- Dried fruit brandy
- Greek brandy
- Brandy de jerez
- Konyak
- Pisco
- South African brandies
- Italian Stravecchio
Grades of Brandy
- V.S. (“very special”)
- V.S.O.P. (“very superior old pale”)
- XO (“extra old”) or napoléon
- Hors d’âge (“beyond age”)
The grades can be found near the drinks’ brand names on the bottle.
Cognac
Cognac or konyak is a variety of Brandy made from grapes, named after a town called cognac in France. To produce cognac, two distillations are done in traditional charentais, copper alembic stills, after the grapes have been pressed and the extracted juice fermented for about three weeks, leaving the wild yeasts to covert the sugar into alcohol with up to 70% per volume. Cognac is aged in limousine oak casts for about two years before they are bottled and sold publicly. The longer cognac stays in the limousine oak casts, the lesser its alcohol volume this is due to a phenomenon called la part des anges (reduction in alcohol level).
Grades of Cognac
- V.S. (Very Special)
- V.S.O.P. (Very Superior Old Pale)
- XO (Extra Old) or Napoléon to Hors d’âge (Beyond Age).
Whisky
Whisky is a distilled alcoholic beverage produced from fermented grain mash. Whisky is aged in American or French oak casks. During the ageing period, the whisky undergoes extraction, evaporation, oxidation, concentration, filtration and colouration to achieve the final flavour. To distil special flavours of Whisky, malts and grains are combined in various ways such as single malt whisky, blended malt whisky, blended whisky, cask strength, and single cask to produce unique flavours. Whisky drinks contain about 40% alcohol by volume.
Varieties of Whisky
- American whisky
- Australian whisky
- Canadian whisky
- Danish whisky
- English whisky
- Finnish whisky
- German whisky
- Indian whisky
- Irish whisky
- Japanese whisky
- Scotch whisky
- Swedish whisky
- Taiwanese whisky
- Welsh whisky
Brandy vs Cognac
“All Cognac is Brandy, but not all Brandy is Cognac” – this simplifies the difference between Brandy and Cognac because cognacs are distilled from specific grapes that grow in certain regions of France.
For a Brandy to be considered a cognac, it has to be distilled twice in copper pot stills and age for at least two years in oak barrels to get it colouration.
Cognacs are considered premium spirit drinks making them more expensive than Brandy
Brandy vs Whisky
Brandy drinks are distilled from wine or grapes while whisky drinks are distilled from various grains such as barley, maize and wheat.
Brandy drinks have an ageing period of up to 10 years while whisky drinks can be aged as long as 20 years.
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