Laird's Applejack (40% alc)

Laird & Company holds License No. 1 from the U.S. Treasury Department, granted in 1780, making it America's oldest licensed distillery. The Laird family's apple brandy tradition stretches back even further, to 1698, when Scottish immigrant William Laird began distilling apples in Monmouth County, New Jersey — a recipe reportedly requested directly by George Washington, who referred to it in his diary as "cyder spirits." This blended Applejack carries that nearly 330-year legacy forward: apple brandy blended with neutral grain spirits for a smooth, approachable character with warm baked-apple and caramel notes — the same style that fuelled the classic Jack Rose cocktail's rise to fame in 1920s New York, immortalised in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises." Try it in a proper Jack Rose with lemon juice and grenadine, or simply over ice to appreciate its genuine slice of American history.