Brandy Crusta — tasting notes & food pairings

Brandy Crusta

The Brandy Crusta is a New Orleans classic from the mid-nineteenth century — Cognac sharpened with orange curaçao, maraschino and fresh lemon, shaken and poured into a small stemmed glass whose rim is crusted with sugar and lined with a long ribbon of lemon peel. Bright amber and elegantly balanced, it is the elaborate ancestor of the whole Sour and Crusta family and the direct forerunner of the Sidecar.

Balanced28% ABV

Bright amber, the Brandy Crusta smells of warm grape Cognac and sweet bitter-orange curaçao lifted by fresh lemon oil from the long crusted peel, with a dry, nutty, almost cherry-pit aromatic from the maraschino running underneath. On the palate it is richly balanced and spirit-forward — the brandy's warmth and the curaçao's orange sweetness set against a clean squeeze of lemon and a whisper of aromatic bitters — with the sugared rim dissolving into a slow, rounding sweetness and a long, dry, faintly nutty finish at around 28 percent alcohol in the glass.