I’d never had domestic applejack, just French calvados, but Ted Haigh’s book is positively bullish on it, and a number of mixologists seem smitten with the Jack Rose, a Prohibition-era cocktail featuring the spirit. So seeing that I could pick up a bottle of Laird’s at Cirace’s for less than fifteen bucks, I couldn’t resist.

Consumed straight, I like calvados far better – it has more a mellow brandy taste rather than applejack’s 80 proof whiskey-like kick. But I’d heartily recommend applejack for cocktails: it’s spirit first and fruitiness second and holds up to strong ingredients.

Take the increasingly famous Jack Rose. A simple applejack sour (with lemon or lime), it’s offset with the sweetness and color of grenadine.

Jack Rose Cocktail

1 jigger domestic applejack
juice of 1/2 lime or lemon
2 dashes grenadine

Shake well and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime/lemon wedge.

At first blush it seems like a frou-frou drink, pink and sweet. But a couple sips into it, you’ll be struck by the complexity. At least I was. Cocktail aficionados insist on a good quality grenadine like Angostura or Fee Brothers brand, but I’ve combed most of the liquor stores in Boston and have yet to see anything other than Rose’s grenadine. Perhaps with the right stuff, the drink would be sublime; with Rose’s, though, it was sufficiently tasty.

Or, if you’re looking for something stronger and not-so-fruity, I flipped through the Trader Vic’s guide and found an Applejack Cocktail that’s equal parts applejack and Italian vermouth. Again using the very strongly flavored Punt e Mes, the result was too bitter and disharmonious for my tastes, so I doubled the proportion of applejack in the recipe. Much better.

Applejack Cocktail

1 jigger domestic applejack
1/2 jigger Italian vermouth

Shake and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

Too outré? Applejack works well in a highball, with some ginger ale, ice and a lemon wedge. Not bad for cheap hooch.

Laird’s Applejack can be found Cirace and Sons Liquors, 173 North Street, North End and Beacon Hill Wine and Spirits, 63 Charles Street, among other stores.

Knob Creek isn’t the end-all, be-all of bourbons, but it certainly was instrumental in popularizing top-shelf bourbon. With its stylish packaging (looking like a typography class art project), it signaled its difference from the Jim Beams of the world. More importantly its taste wasn’t overly sweet or corn-y; instead the 100 proof required sipping rather than guzzling.

These days, there’s the competition of other fine bourbons getting distribution – and there have always been quality products like Maker’s Mark around – but Knob Creek is still worth picking up, particularly when it’s as cheap as it is at Roslindale’s Atlas Liquors. Twenty-dollars a fifth will be hard to match. Even Jim Beam isn’t always much cheaper.

Atlas Liquors is located on 591 Hyde Park Avenue in Roslindale.

It seems that Irish whiskey is making a comeback lately, at least among folks I know and meet. Admittedly, it’s a spirit I really haven’t learned much about. Helpfully, this week’s New York Times food section had a tasting/review of Irish whiskey that runs the gamut from super expensive to downright bargain. It’s a world that goes beyond Jameson’s. “In its purest form,” they write,

Irish whiskey has a fresh, lightly fruity, almost meadowlike aroma and flavor that is entirely its own. In general, it is lighter in texture than most Scotches. We sensed these qualities in most of the whiskeys that we liked best, yet today it is difficult to find whiskeys that might have been recognized as Irish 150 years ago.

They never keep their reviews up for long, so for reference here are their ratings:

Best
Bushmills Single Malt 10 Years Old ($35) *** (“Excellent”)
Midleton Very Rare Blended 2004 ($125) ***
Knappogue Castle Single Malt 1994 Very Special Reserve ($35) ***
Connemara Peated Single Malt Cask Strength ($59) **1/2
Clontarf Single Malt ($30) **1/2
Bushmills Black Bush Blended ($28) **1/2

Best Value (all two stars, “Very Good”)
Kilbeggan Blended ($15)
Bushmills Single Malt 16 Years Old ($60)
Redbreast Blended 12 Years Old ($42)
Tullamore Dew Blended (750 ml.) ($40)

The Redbreast, a copper-pot distilled variety, sounds particularly appealing to me, as I’ve recently grown fond of pot-distilled Jamaican rum (more on that later).