The Apple Brandy Seed
Planting The Apple Brandy Seed
Whilst gazing at a pile of windfall apples lying forlorn in his Gran & Grandad’s farmhouse garden, the apple brandy seed was planted for distillery founder Steve Dustow!
After a busy morning shaking apple trees with the kids, it was apparent that more apples would be required for this project. A morning picking yielded 180 kilos and we needed 3,000 kilos. (Potatoes will yield 25% sugar whereas apples are around 10%).
The Colwith team hand picked six tonnes of apples that would otherwise have perished.
Our Commitment To Sustainability
With our business’ commitment to locality and sustainability, we did not want to ship-in extra apples from afar, nor add refined sugar to boost yield. (This would have been much easier and commercially favourable – a technique employed in the mass market). Instead, we went farm to farm, searching out natural, heritage orchards with chemical free apples.
These apples would have naturally grown and fallen from trees that sequester carbon year-round. (A typical fruit tree can absorb around 21 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year).
During October 2022 we handpicked six and a half tonnes of Cornish apples on Colwith Farm, Avalen Farm and a secret local orchard that cannot yet be named.
Every apple handpicked by the team at Colwith would have otherwise perished.
A typical fruit tree can absorb around 21 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year.
We went farm to farm, searching out natural, heritage orchards with chemical free apples.
Arriving back at the Distillery with our apples hand picked from our local farms & orchards.
The Brandy Process
The first step in the process is to wash the apples in our giant potato washing drum. Next up we mill them into tiny pieces before pumping them into a fermentation vessel for a week. Thereafter we carry out a strip distillation, producing an apple low wine, then a further pot distillation to yield an apple distillate.
The apple-derived 65% distillate will be aged in oak barrels at Colwith Farm Distillery for at least 12 months to imbue sweet vanillin whilst softening and rounding off our spirit.
Washing and sorting the apples in our potato shed.
Making THE BEST Of What We Have
The equipment required to make our apple distillate was standing idle at the time due to industry seasonality. This type of project would be financially impossible if we couldn’t draw on local apple growers’ generosity and the equipment we have available from our existing farming and distillation businesses - it’s all about community!
Pot distillation to yield an apple distillate.
The apple-derived distillate will be aged in oak barrels for at least 12 months to imbue sweet vanillin whilst softening and rounding off our spirit.
Renewable Energy
Not only that, but the electricity also used to mill and process these delicious Cornish apples is 100% renewably sourced from Colwith Farm Distillery’s own solar array system.
It’s All In The Name!
And the final piece - which makes this project a perfect natural progression for our family distillery is the name.
The Cornish word for potato (Aval Dor) translates as ‘Apple of the earth.’ So, it was only a matter of time before we would welcome the humble apple (Aval) to our range of wonderful spirits.
Watch this space!