This post is going sounds like I’m trying to blow sunshine up your hole. But this is freaking great juice. The apricot eau-de-vie from Rochelt is stunning. I’ve been enjoying this nose this for hours. Deep in my senses, it evokes the Mirabelle plums (a small yellow super sweet french plum) that would drop to the ground towards the end of summer on my grandparent’s farm south of Paris. Their smell would carry for blocks. This pour just harkens to those bright days of youth and summer. I can still smell it across the kitchen. It’s a pure single note that lingers.
The balance of content and sweetness from the Wachau Apricot is unusually perfect. It’s bursting with flavor. This is a lot more subtle than the old Glendronach’s and Springbank’s I tend to favor, but not every pour I drink needs to feel like a neurotic punch-up. This Rochelt is a class act. The alcohol is present and blends masterfully without distracting from the fruit. Which is not true at all of the Rochelt Gravenstein apple I tried after Thanksgiving meal. This pour is in a different weightclass and really stands out. I love the way this Rochelt travels across my mouth, waves of fruit and warmth. There aren’t a lot of layers to it, but the true note of the fruit is so damn good, so who cares.
I have heard so much praise for the Rochelt brand from within the Brandy community, and I’ve been incredibly curious. I’ll admit skepticism at price to joy ratio. Visually, it one of the most gorgeous bottles in brandy I’ve seen, and I’m a sucker for that kind of shit. But dang these are pretty pricey for something the size of a large hip flask. Turned out that the Apricot is legitimately that good. I’ll be hunting for another one of these. At 300+, it is a special occasion bottle.
Rating: 8 / 10
Small disclosure. I got this sample for free from the distributor, as I’m buying a cask of Armagnac for a group. They saw on Facebook that I had never tried Rochelt and always wanted to. The gorgeous illustrated bottle was lifted from their website.
