Back Shelf Treasures: Copper & Kings Butchertown Brandy

Kentucky's Copper & Kings has become sort of the High West of brandy. They distill their own spirits, but most of their bottlings are composed of sourced spirits from various distilleries that they blend. Like High West, they have been pioneers in this sort of blending and have done a lot with innovative finishing as well.  My favorite from C&K is still the original Butchertown Brandy – their cask strength, non-chill filtered blend of pot-stilled brandies from all over the place.  Here's what I said about it on my blog when I first tasted it a few years ago:

The nose is spicy with light fruit like a good Cognac. The palate opens with sweet grapes and cocoa. Midway through, it takes on spice which gets stronger through the finish which is spicy on the palate but fruity on the nose. It's got great flavor, though you can definitely feel the high abv. Where it really shines though is with a splash of water. Water brings out a fuller fruit on the nose and a more rounded palate which synthesizes the fruit and the wood. It was tasty without the water, but with the splash, it tastes like one of those great single cask Cognacs that K&L has brought in over the last few years.

Find the Butchertown online at KLWines.com

Back then, I happily paid $60 for a bottle of Butchertown, calling it "a great price for the quality you're getting." Now, K&L has it on sale at almost half that price, and there's plenty of it.

- Sku