There was this guy named George from Virginia who really dug booze but was tired of the same old thing. He heard about a hot-tasting spirit from New Jersey and wrote the distiller a letter saying something like, “Hey, pal, wanna share your recipe?”
The distiller, a third-generation American by the name of Alexander Laird, thought What the hell? and sent the recipe south. George not only enjoyed the libation, known in every hamlet as Jersey Lightning, he opened a little side business. “Began distilling cyder,” George wrote in his diary on August 1, 1761. And that’s how the Laird family of Colts Neck became acquainted with the father of our country.
Years later, during the Revolutionary War, General George Washington would lead two of the Laird boys into battle, including Alexander’s youngest son, Robert. According to family lore, Washington ordered barrels of the apple concoction to keep his troops warm during their winter’s stay in Monmouth County. But this isn’t a story about that war; it’s a story about that concoction, known then, as it is today, as Applejack (a.k.a. apple brandy).
Haven’t heard of it? No matter. If Lisa Laird Dunn gets her way, Laird’s Applejack will soon be bound for the top shelf of every saloon in the land. Laird Dunn is the vice president of marketing at Laird & Company, and she travels the country telling folks about the pure pleasure that is Applejack. It’s more than an 80-proof, bourbon-tasting, apple-infused drink that’s been aged in barrels for more than four years, it’s also the longest-selling family-owned libation in America. This year, the Lairds are celebrating their company’s 225th anniversary with a redesigned package for their signature drink.
“We’re way off the radar right now,” Laird Dunn admits from her office in the company’s rambling 1700s-era farmhouse headquarters in Scobeyville, just a few miles from the original Laird property. “Back in the forties, fifties, sixties, we advertised heavily, back when ‘brown’ spirits were in their heyday. We even had a Miss Applejack for a while.”
If the family has lost customers, it just might be their own fault. “During Prohibition, a lot of inferior Applejack-like products sprung up,” Laird Dunn says. “They’d take our empty bottles, put theirs in, and sell it as ours. My grandfather took Applejack off the market, redesigned the bottles, and then went about purchasing all the distilleries and labels that were making other apple products in order to maintain the quality name of our product. So in the process of saving the brand, we killed the competition. Today, there’s still no competition, and thus no category for us to be in.”
Which is why, when you visit your local spirits shop, you’re just as liable to find the Laird family’s prized product alongside blackberry brandy instead of, say, near the more mature bourbons and whiskeys. But while Laird Dunn crisscrosses the country to get the word out to distributors, bar owners, and discerning drinkers, she not-so-secretly hopes for a cultural revolution of sorts. “We wouldn’t mind seeing a rap star drink Applejack in his video,” she admits.
For that matter, guys like Bob Baran, who owns Sherwood Liquors in Ewing, wouldn’t mind either. He keeps his limited stock of Laird’s Applejack next to the Jägermeister. “It’s sad,” he says. “A little bit of marketing would go a long way. Right now, it sells only once in a while.”
Fortunately, Laird & Company’s bottom line doesn’t depend solely on selling more Applejack. It also produces a wide array of vodkas, rums, gins, you name it. Of the million cases of spirits they produce annually, a mere 40,000 contain Applejack. “It’s our heart and soul,” Laird Dunn concedes, even it if wasn’t always her heart and soul.
Growing up around the family business, she wasn’t ready to dedicate her life to producing alcohol. She went to college to be a veterinarian. “But then I realized the history we have here,” she says. Other Laird women had worked for the company before, but none had become a major player in its daily operation until Laird Dunn signed up for full-time duty in 1983. Today Laird & Company employs 35 people in Colts Neck, including Laird Dunn’s father, Larrie Laird, the president and CEO, and her cousin, John Laird III, the executive vice president.
And how would William Laird, Lisa’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather and Applejack’s first producer, take the news? “We have original account books from the 1700s,” Laird Dunn says. “In addition to the distillery, we had a store that sold all types of goods, and I came across an entry. It read “shoes for wench.” I think it’s fair to say William would be surprised.”
The first apple seeds in the American Colonies arrived from England in 1632, and they thrived; eventually nearly every farm in the land sported numerous apple trees. The fruit that they produced was used almost entirely to make hard cider.
Enter William Laird, who settled in Monmouth County and quickly applied his scotch-making smarts to turn hard cider into what was called cider spirits. And with that, Laird’s Applejack began production.
Not until 1780, however, did William’s grandson, Robert Laird, note in business ledgers that the family was selling the drink and not just giving it away to satisfied customers like George Washington. By this time, Laird’s Applejack was the most popular drink in the Colonies. In 1833, one year before Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Illinois Legislature, he applied for a saloon license. Among the items listed for sale on Lincoln’s license was Laird’s Applejack.
Robert’s second son, Samuel, eventually took over the business until a fire destroyed the distillery in 1849. Two years later, Samuel’s son, also named Robert, moved the operation down the street to its present location on Laird Road and oversaw a great expansion, selling Applejack from Monmouth County to Monterey. For decades, things sailed along for the Lairds—even during Prohibition they were granted a license to produce Applejack for “medicinal purposes.” Sometime after the eighteenth amendment was repealed in 1933, Laird Dunn’s grandfather bought the distillery in Virginia, where the company’s distilling now takes place.
Applejack remained popular until the 1970s, when the imbibing public lost its taste for brown beverages. But, says liquor expert Gary Regan, “It’s starting to make some headway because of the resurgence of cocktails. I think it’s better than vodka in a cosmopolitan.”
But how do you convince an entire country that your product is not a sweet-tasting fruity beverage? As Regan points out, Applejack goes down smoothly, like good bourbon. The online newsletter American Mixologist describes a “beckoning bouquet of peeled apples and a hint of toasted oak.” Laird’s new signature product, their hand-bottled Apple Brandy, is a true sipping drink, with hints of vanilla, caramel, and oak.
The Lairds clearly take immense pride in running the country’s oldest family-owned distillery. Laird Dunn remembers hearing stories as a young girl about large corporations that wanted to buy the family business, only to be rebuffed. When asked whether she’d sell it now, she looks surprised. “As a kid, I just thought it was so cool seeing my name on a bottle,” she says. “I still think it’s pretty cool.”
Jeff Edelstein is a regular contributor.
Article from October, 2005 Issue.