Copper & Kings Butchertown and American Brandy Review

Butchertown Brandy – Producer: Copper & Kings. Distillers: Copper & King and others. ABV: 62%. Price: $60-65.

American Small Batch Brandy – Producer: Copper & Kings. Distillers: Copper & King and others. ABV: 45%. Price: $35-40.

Hard to overstate how good Copper & Kings’ brandy is. It’s a bourbon-lover’s dream.

Copper & Kings are real innovators: a progressive Kentucky craft distillery that’s setting itself apart from its bourbon-making neighbors by focusing on brandy, absinthe, and gin.

Their brandy’s clearly the star of the show. It starts with Copper & Kings’ own young pot-stilled brandy–a mix of apple-based and grape-based–and blends 25% of that with 75% of older stocks sourced from other American distilleries using the solera method. It’s bottled non-chill filtered.

The Butchertown is the big hitter. It’s bottled at a whopping 62% ABV cask strength. It has beautiful sweet oak and masses of dark fruit on the nose. Take a sip–amazingly, it’s sippable even at full strength–and you’ll get bourbon vanilla, orange peel, and the kind of grape and raisin flavors you get in a great port-finished whisk(e)y. The ripe fruit and dark oak finish goes on forever. K&L Wines’ David Driscoll rightly says the Butchertown drinks more like a Four Roses private barrel than a French brandy.

(N.B.: K&L often has both this and the American Small Batch in stock online, and they ship to any state that allows it.)

The American Small Batch Brandy is aged in 90% ex-bourbon barrels and 10% virgin oak, and is bottled at a significantly milder but still potent 45% ABV.  Softer, less explosive, but with all the richness and depth of its big brother.

All in all, these two are game changers. Home runs. And brandies any whisk(e)y drinker can proudly call favorites.

Cheers, friends! – BO

Copper & Kings graciously provided samples for review. As always, our opinions are 100% our own.