Apple brandy with a molasses kick.

[Happyhollow]

Thinking about doing 70% apple cider 20% sugar and 10% molasses. Looking for a little caramel flavor to carry over along with the apple flavor. Any ideas suggestions are appreciated. Apple are ready next month and want to do a few runs so I can perfect it.

[Shine0n]

I think your molasses will overpower the apple.

From what I've read apple is tough to get right, and easy to mess up.

At 10% in my sweetfeed it's almost overpowering the grain flavor, I may scale back to 8%.

If you have access to lots of apples I'd make a load of cider and distill some into brandy. You can always back sweeten it wit as much or little as you like. I'd hate to do all that work to have the moll mask the fruit.

Shine0n

[zach]

I would second the notion of no molasses. Try a bottle of french calvados from the liquor store and you might find something you want to replicate.

[cranky]

Personally I prefer my apple brandy as pure apple brandy. Sugar will only take away flavor. As far as the molasses I think it will make cuts even harder than they will already be. Apple flavor can be very elusive and the particular flavors you want may come across in different cuts along with off flavors you don't want from the other ingredient. My thought is if you want that molasses flavor make a batch of apple and a separate batch of rum then mix them to taste.

[Happyhollow]

Well I've got 60 lbs of molasses kicking around. Maybe ill make a couple batches of that and hold onto till the apples are ready. It will be nice to have some rum around anyway. I might even do a small run of the apple molasses just to see what it might be like.