What Is Calvados? A Guide to French Apple Brandy

What Sets Calvados Apart from Other Apple Brandies

Wherever you are in the United States, there’s a decent chance you’ve started to notice Calvados popping up on bar menus. 

Per the Calvados Spirits Council, the American market is now the second largest export market for this French brandy. As Calvados continues its trajectory toward a greater presence in American bars, it’s important to understand a few specifics, like what makes this French product different from American apple brandy.

What is Calvados?

Calvados must be made in certain areas of the Northern French region of Normandy, with about 300 producers. Similar to other French products like wines and cheese, it also has an Appellation d’Origin Contrôlée(AOC) a government-controlled certification with an exact set of rules that ensures the origins, traditional methods, and specific ingredients are followed during production. 

Calvados is made mostly from apples, with an allowance for a small amount of perry pears, a term used for small, tannin-packed pear varieties used to make cider. All fruit used also must be grown in Normandy. The pulp is pressed into a “must”, fermented, distilled into eau-de-vie, and aged in French oak barrels for at least two years, though it is often aged longer. Things get more specific from there for each appellation.

According to Guillaume Drouin, who owns and operates Calvados Christian Drouin with his father Christian in Pont-l’Évêque, France, the terroir of the different apples and pears used sets Calvados apart from other apple brandies. “It is like comparing Champagne to a sparkling wine,” he says. 

Calvados appellations 

There are three different Calvados distinctions within Normandy. Pays d’Auge, the strictest of the Calvados appellations was created in 1942. Calvados AOC was established in 1984 and is the largest area where Calvados can be produced. In 1997, the Domfrontais region, known for its high proportion of pear trees, became a recognized AOC.

Pays d’Auge

The apples and pears for Calvados produced in this appellation must come from certain areas to the north and east of the region, and the final result can only have a maximum of 30% pear juice. Double distillation in a Charentais pot still is required, along with a mandatory minimum of two years of aging in French oak barrels.

Calvados AOC

This appellation area covers a large swath of the lower Normandy region. There isn’t a mandatory distillation method required for the generic Calvados AOC —  can be a single distillation in a column still or double in a pot still. Also, there aren’t any rules as to the percentages of pear juice used. However, this appellation requires two years of aging before bottling.

Domfrontais

Drouin says this appellation applies to the smallest area where most producers make Calvados with more pears than apples — at least 30% pear juice is required. The Calvados must be distilled once, in a column still, and aged for a minimum of three years.

What does Calvados taste like?

At its core, Calvados is distilled cider, so you can expect those apple flavors, plus some pear, to really shine. 

As Drouin mentions, Calvados is a vehicle for the terroir of different apple and pear varieties. Apples might be bitter, bittersweet, sweet, or sharp, and producers can play with different varieties to find a unique balance. 

Younger Calvados will express those fruit flavors more brightly and true to form, while Calvados that’s been aged longer will start to take on more apple pie characteristics.

How to pair Calvados with food

The best place to start when pairing Calvados with food is with other delights from Normandy. The region is known for its cheese, and Christian Drouin worked with Meilleur Ouvrier de France fromager Laurent Dubois to create pairings like Calvados Christian Drouin Hors d’âge with Comté 30 mois d’affinage, Calvados Christian Drouin XO with Charolais, and Calvados Christian Drouin Réserve with Pont l’Evêque, Livarot, Camembert. 

Calvados also works especially well with desserts like brownies or of course, apple pie, sealing its status as an essential after-dinner drink. In fact, a neat pour of Calvados or a bit of Calvados in coffee can be a dessert in and of itself. 

How to drink Calvados

The traditions around how Calvados is enjoyed have changed over time.

Drouin points to cider’s 12th-century origins in Normandy, and the first written mention of distilling cider into eau-de-vie in 1553. The name “Calvados” developed after the French Revolution in 1790 when people still drank the eau-de-vie unaged.

“Usually barrel-aged eau-de-vie was used to celebrate a wedding, birth, or special occasion,” says Drouin….Only with the establishment of the appellations did aging become a necessary and defining element.

In the 1950s and 60s, the most common way to drink Calvados was by adding “a few centiliters” to coffee to make Café-Calva. 

Today, Calvados is often enjoyed as a digestif at the end of the meal, but the apple brandy is also used in cocktails alongside ingredients that highlight its particular blend of sweetness, bitterness, fruitiness, and warmth. Coffee is a rich, decadent partner to Calvados, while brighter ingredients such as lemon juice and tonic bring out those apple and pear notes.

Sipping a spirit neat is a great way to get to know it, and Calvados lends itself perfectly to standalone enjoyment. Drouin recommends combining it with tonic water and a slice of apple for a fresh and fruity long drink, but Calvados also does well neat in a Glencairn glass (a traditional whiskey-tasting glass with a tapered top to concentrate aromas), where different flavors will develop as the liquid slightly warms.