What Is Brandy... Which Brandy Is Best & What Does V.S.O.P. Mean?

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Brandy is distilled wine - wine with most of the water removed - which changes the taste and makes the alcohol content higher. The Cognac region of France produces the best known brandy, although very fine brandies are made around the world. Brandy can be made from grapes, berries or other fruit. Slivovitz is made from plums and Kir from cherries.

So what does VSOP mean? VS stands for Very Special. VSOP stands for Very Special Old Pale, and XO is Extra Old.

Find out more about how it's aged, brandy's medicinal uses, along with brandy cocktails, history and a bit of brandy trivia...

Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac - The home page of Cognac available in French and in English provides a history of cognac, lots of nice graphs to explain vintages and names, a glossary and more will give you a good understanding of the drink, how to taste it, serve it and appreciate it. The cognac cocktail of the week gives recipes for mixing for those who prefer not to drink it neat.

Brandy Tastings - A very nice history and regional guide to brandy supplemented by reviews of Armagnac, Cognac, Calvados, Grappa, Eau de Vie and other brandy varieties. Also provides recipes for 3 brandy based drinks: Sidecar, Stinger and Brandy Alexander. Beverage Testing Institute's site is a treasure trove of alcolhol related information and has a shop for picking up what they've picked out.

The South African Brandy Foundation - This site is delightful. Visit the myths section for medicinal remedies based on brandy... a glass an hour for 'Just any pain'. It's understandable that the pain would be duller! A nice section on how brandy is made in the What is Brandy section and many other good sections. Skip the order online section unless you are able to phone a South African cellar.

World of Brandy - A little funky in the design department, but great listings for brandy by the country where it is produced. The main page is available both in English and French although the individual country pages appear to be only in English.

The Art that is Brandy - From the physics department of an Australian university this 'shrine to spirits' page focuses on the rather extensive list of brandies that these physicists have sampled. This site uses a simple rating system of 1 to 5 stars. Each of the tasters gives independent ratings which explains the letters next to the stars.