St. George Spirits Pear Brandy

This is where American craft distilling began. When German-born Jörg Rupf founded St. George Spirits in 1982 in a former naval hangar in Alameda, California, almost no one in the country knew what eau-de-vie was — and pear brandy was the very first thing he made, earning him the nickname "the patron saint of American eau-de-vie." Forty-plus years later it's still the distillery's flagship, now under master distiller Lance Winters. The goal, in Winters' words, is "an olfactory snapshot" of exactly what pears smell like at their peak of ripeness. The fruit is dry-farmed, organic Bartlett pears — about 30 pounds packed into every 750ml bottle — fermented whole, stems and all, for around ten days with champagne yeast, then distilled in a single run on the distillery's oldest still, a 250-liter copper pot custom-built by Arnold Holstein the year St. George opened. No sugar, nothing artificial, bottled at 40% ABV. Expect an astonishingly fruit-forward nose of ripe pear skin, honey, and white pepper, opening into a dry palate of juicy Bartlett pear with subtle honey and cracked black pepper, buttery richness balanced by steely minerality, and a floral finish that lingers. Wine Enthusiast named it a Best Buy; F. Paul Pacult put it among the Top 50 Spirits of 2014. Sip it as a digestif, or swap it for gin in a sour or highball — it's stunning in cocktails.

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