Talk:Brandy

message: Removed Spanish portal entry as I cannot see any references to spain in the document. --90.210.5.54 (talk) 20:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Napoleon Brandy" is a brand of French brandy from Alsace! It isn't a Cognac! However, I think this French brandy is only available in Europe and in my opinion its quality is quite poor, compared to Cognac or Armagnac. That "Napoleon" as a classification of Cognac isn't defined means: A "Napoleon Cognac" can be a Cognac where the youngest brandy is stored 6 1/2 years + 1 day in cask - or very much longer! It depends in fact on the traditions of the respective brand. 86.56.0.159 00:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion header

message: The structure of brandy article reversed 17.3.2011 was simple. Actual structure is dogmatic.(81.9.163.152 (talk) 10:07, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complicated structures are not neutral 

message: Once upon a time every Cognac producers used to call “Napoleon” his best brandy. Napoleon meant them de best brandy produced. This usage disappeared as a consequence of commercial abuse in labelling. Nowadays Cognac producers do not call Napoleon his best product. It can still be used in contexts like this: “She gave us a nice brandy, but really it was not “la fine Napoleon”.  (González del Valle (talk) 03:58, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Napoleon and Cognac

message: There are two concepts implied in these two expressions: “pomace brandy” and “marc”. Italians have two words for the two concepts. They call “grappa” the alcoholic beverage, and “vinaccia” the raw material it is made from. In French “marc” means both things:  the peel of the grape and metonymically the beverage. “Pomace” in my opinion means “vinaccia”, ie. the raw material. In English you speak or write about “grape pomace” if the by-product is not fermented and of  “winery pomace” if is it already fermented. It would be nonsense, in my opinion, to change into “grape marc” and “winery marc”. Instead it is necessary to speak about “marc” as a beverage, not only because is not a compound word, but also for being more precise. The definition would be: Marc is an alcoholic beverage  done with pomace, present during distillation.
When somebody writes about “marc” or “cachaça”  or “cachaza”  or “grappa” the reliable source for checking  the exact meaning  given to those words  is not the  British Encyclopaedia or the Oxford dictionary, but a French-French dictionary in the first case; a Portuguese-Portuguese dictionary in the second  case and a Spanish-Spanish;  dictionary in the third case and Italian-Italian dictionary in the forth case. Usually it is ridiculous, to quote a particular one. 
A French-English dictionaries or Italian-English, etc.  are not reliable. V. gr. The Oxford dictionary says that “pomum” means “malum” ad vocem “pomace”. It does not mean that. The reliable dictionary is a Latin-Latin dictionary.(González del Valle (talk) 22:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: On “marc”, “pomace brandy” and using not English words

message: * Can somebody add an image to this article to show what brandy itself actually looks like, in a brandy glass Yeanold Viskersenn 15:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image request 

message: Does brandy's sweetness come from the presence of any residual sugars, or are there other flavor elements that make it seem sweeter than whisky or other similar spirits?  69.81.154.24 07:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sweetness 

message: The sentence "However, heating brandy may cause the alcohol vapor to become too strong, so that the aromas are overpowered." has a Citation Needed label. Now, anybody can test for themselves that heating brandy makes the alcohol vapor too strong, but when the brandy has cooled to the temperature of a warm hand (or, of course, back to room temperature), the aroma is more round and pleasant. 
I wrote the above because I absolytely hate(!!) things like "The sky is blue.[citation needed]", and I thought anonymously removing the tag and adding the explanation would only be undone without actually thinking.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.44.215 (talk) 19:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grape brandy 

message: There is apparently some disagreement to the first paragraph of the fruit brandy section. Here is what I removed from the article:
*** this paragraph is totaly wrong, we need a specialist to rewrite it. This is not clear what Fruit Brandy is but Palinka and slivovica are definitively not, they are just normal spirits made from fruits. And you don't drink them chilled or iced. Same for calvados.
:::A generally accepted definition of the term Fruit Brandy is very difficult. For inctance in the US Kirschwasser is considered to be a Fruit Brandy but in Germany it's considered to be a variety of traditional German schnapps, and traditional schnapps isn't brandy, it's just a type of normal spirits. The same is true for many other so called Fruit Brandies, in very most English speaking countries they are called Fruit Brandies, but in their respective countries of origin they are condidered to be normal spirits. 86.56.0.159 00:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fruit brandy 

message: Like most alcoholic beverages, brandy can the drinker as being a certain type of person. I couldn't find any information outside of vague college anecdotes.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.202.27.131 (talk) 04:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural image of brandy drinkers? 

message: The distillation section had an unclear tag, so I rewrote it and removed the tag.  This is clearer, at least to me, but changes are welcome.ThisIsMyWikipediaName (talk) 18:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distillation section 

message: See this passage from the Internet about the history of brandy in China. :
Readers will be doubly surprised to learn that the Chinese invented brandy, because
though the fact in itself is impressive enough, it is not widely realized that the Chinese
drank wine made from grapes at all, much less distilled it into brandy. Grape wine was
being drunk by the second century BC at the latest in China, since we begin to have
textual evidence of it by then. The envoy and traveller Chang Ch'ien brought good wine
grapes (Vitis vinifera) back with him from Bactria about 126 BC. Before the importation
of those grapes, however, there were wild vine species, or 'mountain grapes', which
were already being used for wine, namely Vitis thunbergii and Vitas filifolia. Wine made
from them is mentioned before Chang Ch'ien in the book called Classical
Pharmacopoeia of the Heavenly Husbandman.
The fact that an even stronger drink could be obtained from wine first came to attention
through the production of `frozen-out wine' among the Central Asian tribes.It was presumably
this to which. Chang Hua was referring in 290 AD in his book Records of the
Investigation of Things, when he said: `The Western regions have a wine made from
grapes which will keep good for years, as much as ten years, it is commonly said; and if
one drinks of it, one will not get over one's drunkenness for days.
The tribal peoples of Kao-Ch'ang (Turfan) presented `frozen-out wine' as tribute to
Chinese emperors more than once, commencing in 520 AD. 
 Distilled wine, or brandy, was known in China as `burnt wine'. The English word
`brandy' itself comes from the Dutch brandewijn (`burnt wine'). And the German word for
brandy or spirits is Branntwein (`burnt wine'), while a distiller is a Branntweinbrenner
(`burnt wine burner'). It is possible that all of these words result from a direct translation
of the Chinese shao chiu (`burnt wine') by Dutch sailors. If not, they are a curious
coincidence indeed. http://www.eykhoff.nl/Wine%20in%20China.pdf --Wine is slime (talk) 22:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Fernand Braudel's Structures of Everyday Life Chapter 3 Food and Drink states Chinese wines were made from millet or rice and were often flavored with fruits. Chinese grape wine was a grape flavored beer. The Persians and Chinese were distilling Camphor by the 9th century but whether they were making distilled brandy before the 11th (when it was made in Europe) is unknown. It was medicinal until the near the end of the 15th century. In 1514 the guild of vinegar makers were given the privilege of distilling in France by Louis XII. Braudel makes a convincing case for the spread of brandy as a popular drink belonging to the 16th and not the 15th century. Nitpyck (talk) 19:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: History section

message: The Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (I used ed. 1970) defines “vino de quema” this way: “vino de quema   (wine for burning) is the one destined to distillation for it has not conditions for being drunk”.  Once it was distilled —quemado— it was shipped to Holland, a small part of the Netherlands and the name used in Spain to designate the whole country. The Spanish word “holandas” (Vid. The same dictionary), means the result of burning wine in pot stills, while is still transparent and did no get the brown colour of oxidation. The name comes from the destination of this “vino quemado”: Holland. English people liked this product, but they preferred old brandy more than young brandy. The wines of Charente  area are “vinos de quema”. They are too acid for being used as table wine. The old brandy  —vino quemado— from Cognac is worldwide appreciated. (González del Valle (talk) 05:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  About brandy and burning 

message: I am unaware of any commercial Apple Jack produced by freeze distillation. Nitpyck (talk) 16:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apple Jack 

message: I have come across in literature (mostly fiction, largely the Sherlock Holmes series) many references to brandy being used in some medicinal capacity. Is there any truth to this and it has just been omitted, or is this complete and utter falsehood?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mewtroid (talk • contribs) 00:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medicinal use? 

message: Are the four separate entries for various slivovitz spellings in the list of fruit brandies really necessary?--89.216.166.56 (talk) 14:10, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slivovitz 

message: Napoleon brandy is not defined. 
The only reference is:
X.O.: "Extra Old", Napoleon or Vieille Reserve, aged at least six years, Napoleon at least four years. (Frankly, that doesn't event make much sense. If Napoleon brandy belongs in the set of (X.O.), then it should be aged at least six years, not at least four years. Or is there some special quality to it (fermentation process, region of origin, type of grape, etc) that makes it fit in with Extra Old and Vieille Reserve brandies?)
I think it would be useful if somebody with more understanding expanded this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hilde27 (talk • contribs) 14:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Napoleon' Brandy 

message: Is that the right word? Ive got a bottle and its labeled: Aguardiente de orujo.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.13.127.97 (talk) 04:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orujo 

message: I think this article should be split since it covers two different things - brandy (wine brandy) and fruit/pomace brandy. I agree their names are similar and production technology is somewhat similar, but still they are two (or three) different things: Brandy, Fruit brandy and Pomace brandy (the latter two may or may not be presented together). They could be developed into great articles but not as it is now. Any thoughts?--Tomobe03 (talk) 23:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This article could still keep a summary of the pomace brandy and fruit brandy articles with a "main article" referral at the tops of the sections. How wine brandy differs from other brandies is certainly relevant to this article, and these sections could contain a brief summary of the difference. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

text: Brandy, as generally used (especially if not jurisdiction-specific), is a broad term. Since there are multiple (actually, more than two) types of "brandy", although it may be a good thing to have separate articles on specific types of brandy, I don't think it is justifiable to make a wholesale removal of all mentions of types of brandy other than grape brandy from this article. Even in the EU there is also "grain brandy", and this article is not just about the EU.  If you want an article that is exclusively about grape brandy, that's fine - please create a separate article called "grape brandy".  Note also that some editors also seem to be assuming that all "wine" is made from grapes, which is obviously not true.  See the wine article. Its initial paragraph says that wine is usually made from grapes, but there is certainly such a thing referred to as some type of wine that is not made from grapes. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  One article about two things 

message: “Pot still vs. tower still” is an issue common to whiskey, tequila, rum, etc. It should be treated in general. It corresponds to the entry “Alembic”.
Grape brandy has sufficient issues by itself. They have not to be mixed with other issues such as “fruit brandies” that deserve a particular entry. Grape pomace brandy deserves also an entry. Instead other pomace brandies should be only an appendix of grape pomace brandy. They have very little content.
It is bad to accumulate too many issues under the entry “brandy”. “Aging”, although is a problem common to other alcoholic beverages, such as whisky, rum etc,  presents particular problems in the case of grape brandy and ought to be included.(González del Valle (talk) 04:37, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Suppression of “pot still” , “fruit brandy” and “pomace brandies” issues

message: After a lot of confusion over the terminology and scope (which included Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rakia), I clearly delineated articles Brandy, Fruit brandy and Pomace brandy, and created a :category:Fruit brandies. While the real-world terminology is still rather confusing, I hope that at least Wikipedia coverage of this broad and fuzzy topic (variety of names for a variety of similar beverages across the globe) is a bit more straightforward now. Cheers! No such user (talk) 15:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Great work. Much better organization. Thanks for the excellent effort! oknazevad (talk) 13:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Since grappa is unflavored, and also a grape spirit (albeit unaged), a brief mention doesn't seem completely out of scope when discussing Italian brandies. That it has a separate article that is linked doesn't strike me as a reason to remove it completely anymore than removing any of the other named varieties would make sense. Plus there's still a mention of it in the following sentence, so it's part of the overall picture that, in my view, should stay as the brief mention it is. oknazevad (talk) 22:20, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: But it isn't exactly brief – more than half of that paragraph (which is only supposed to enumerate significant brandy-producing regions) is now devoted to grappa. Plus, grappa is already explained and linked in the article, and contains most of the facts from that paragraph, so the addition stands out as a digression. No such user (talk) 11:42, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article rescoped 

message: Wikimedia received an email from Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac via OTRS :ticket:2016060110015049 regarding the use of the term "Cognac" When describing something other than the wine spirit produced in "the Cognac delimited area, in France, under strict rules of production and with a unique know-how".
I pointed out that this article covers the history of brandy, including time periods when the term was used prior to the legal limitations on the usage.
However, are usages are not supported by reference. I see a general template was added in 2014 looking for additional citations, but that hasn't resulted in citations for the specific use of cognac in many cases. I will add some more specific request for citations. Please note that the knowledgeable people writing to us have suggested that our history is inaccurate, so the goal is not simply defined some citations but to examine them carefully and correct the article wherever necessary. Ideally, corrections and citations will be added soon. If not, per the general rule that challenge material without supporting citations can be removed I plan to remove the unsupported claims.
Interested editors might wish to consult Cognac encyclopedia.--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:20, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Which are the exact passages they have issue with? Because i believe that this article, which is about all brandy, not just cognac, does a good job of making the distinction between cognac specifically and other varieties of brandy; cognac-specific content is at the separate cognac article. It could very well be that the BINC misread something. Plus there's the fact that it's not our job to enforce trademarks, so their objections may be without merit in any fashion. oknazevad (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: oknazevad, but Sphilbrick's 's are well justified. At minimum, the tagged sentences suffer from sloppy writing which conflates "brandy" and colloquial "cognac". It is not our job to enforce trademarks indeed, but we shouldn't defend sloppy and unsourced writing either. I'll try to address a few. No such user (talk) 07:40, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but we also must realize that the idea that "cognac" is limited to the one geographic origin may not have existed at the time the events in those passages took place; we must be careful not to apply modern rules to eras before they were formed. BINC is very dedicated to maintaining the modern rules about origin, but the name "cognac" at one point in time was much like "cheddar" regarding a style of cheese, not necessarily one made at that English village. That's why the Turkish variety "kanyak" has a name that is clearly derived from "cognac" (I agree the "burn blood" bit can go; while the terms sound similar, from what I can tell, it's seems to be coincidence). So I'd say tread cautiously; we're not here to "correct" the historical record for BINC. oknazevad (talk) 16:46, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreferenced used of "Cognac" 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: As I hinted in the edit summary, Pisco is not a brandy as commonly defined. It is a variety of grappa, and has pretty similar (although richer) taste and color. Upon reading its article, it seems to be produced from fermented fresh grape juice, which would presumably place it in the group of fruit spirits? No such user (talk) 14:19, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Fermented fresh grape juice is wine, and if it's made by distilling wine it's a brandy by the strict definition used in this article. That said, there are varieties made from pomace, too. And the question of barrel aging comes into play, as well. I'm not hung up on including it, but removing it because some versions are made from pomace seemed too simplistic of an assessment. oknazevad (talk) 15:14, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: "Fermented fresh grape juice" still has some way to become a wine. From the article:  Anyway, since pisco does not age, look and taste any way near what we usually know as "brandy", I would like to see a pretty strong source that would classify it as such. I just removed is apparently one of many similar entries included by drive-by visitors. No such user (talk) 17:37, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pisco