[Music] [Walter] For centuries, the apple has been a symbol of good health and happiness throughout the world.

[Apple crunch] The health I can taste, the happiness may need to be squeezed out with a little distilling.

To learn about America's original distilled spirit, apple brandy, we'll meet America's oldest distilling family.

I also return to Charles Thompson's estate, the Harriton House, to cook up some delicious recipes using this historic liquor.

Such as, Waldorf salad in a salmon roulade, scallopini of pork with stuffing, and an apple flambé.

all for A Taste of History.

[Fire crackling] [Narrator] This program is made possible by: Pasture-raised Australian beef and lamb.

Adding variety into your weekly meals or a unique touch for your next celebration.

Widely available at your local market.

For recipes and more, we're at aussiebeefandlamb.com [Music] [Walter] I'm so excited to be at my home turf at the Harriton House in Bryn Mawr, where I cooked for so many episodes and it feels so good to be back home.

Let's get started on the classic Waldorf salad.

The basic ingredients for a Waldorf salad are very simple: celery root, mayonnaise and apple.

Everything else is whatever you like.

The flavor lies right in the celery root.

Try to cut it really fine, like so.

And then I do it lengthways like that.

I want to get what we call in classic cooking.

a julienne.

Just for making sure that it doesn't oxidize, I have my 18th century lemon squeezer.

Next, we have walnuts.

I already chopped some of them down, or you can leave them whole.

I also added a red onion because of the crunchiness.

Now we've got to go to the apples.

Any apple would work.

For me personally I love Granny Smith because it's tart.

I use that all the time for cooking.

The honeycrisp and pink lady as well.

The nutrients are behind the apple skin and therefore I recommend that you do it with the skin.

I'm cutting this in the same manner as my celery.

[Crisp bite] Unbelievable.

Pink lady, you rock!

So we got the apples that I already presliced just a while ago.

We got the celery root, walnuts, and the onion, and then the cranberries.

I recommend that you do not chop them.

And actually I get to use something which I don't get to use very often.

It's my very own seasoning that's called 'A Taste of History.'

And what's unique about it has cinnamon, mace, nutmeg all incorporated into it.

But it definitely puts you in touch with the past.

Therefore, the name, 'A Taste of History.'

And then I have mustard.

Most recipes don't use mustard.

I like a little dijon mustard which is in there.

Just like a spoon.

And then I have a curry, but literally a pinch, which is my personal signature into the dish.

Every time I've made it people say, wow, this is so different than what I've ever had before.

It's the curry.

But it's got to be very delicate and not too much.

And then freshly ground pepper.

And a good amount.

[Pepper grinding] And then mayo I put in gentle.

Just a little bit of heavy cream that I want to incorporate into it.

The rest of the onion in here.

Now, I want to mix it up really good.

Now, the next thing would be if you've got the time, you let it sit up.

After it's been set for a while, I want to make sure I check on the flavor.

Oh, gosh, that is spectacular.

The brandy I would put in there now.

This particular brandy is aged in oak barrels, so it gets a beautiful color and a very unique flavor.

So don't be bashful.

I mean, just depending how much you like.

So I'll mix it up one more time, and we're going to start plating it.

What a beautiful salad.

More people should be doing that.

Now the Scottish salmon.

Lucky for me, it's pre-sliced.

I just opened it up, look at that.

And then I put two slices together.

The Waldorf in here, maybe a little bit more.

And then I just wrap it.

I tell you, the flavor of the apple brandy comes really through right now.

It's- It's just mind boggling.

The arugula and this platter.

Three for me is an ideal format for a beautiful rouladen.

Little green onion on top.

I've got a couple of cherry tomatoes cut in half.

I like to keep that pretty simple.

Lucky that we are in season right now, to add some strawberries.

We've got a little bit of parsley here.

Green on green.

And just like that, my variation of a Waldorf salad a la Staib.

The combination of the crisp, refreshing flavors of the Waldorf salad, with the smoky, and savory notes of the rouladen, all brought together into a subtle sweetness of apple brandy.

Delicious.

[Music] [Narrator] long before whiskey and rum hit colonial dining tables, distilled apple brandy was America's favorite spirit.

Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, apple seeds were brought to North America by European settlers, and it didn't take long for a majority of farms to begin harvesting and distilling.

[Lisa] By the late 1600s, apples were flourishing and the apples that were available were cider apples.

Very bitter, very tart.

Very tannic.

They actually were called spitters because you take a bite of the apple and spit it out.

So there really was no use for the apple except to produce hard cider or cider spirits.

In 1698, Alexander Laird emigrated from Scotland with his son William, and settled in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Utilizing this abundant fruit and their distilling expertise, Laird and Company was born.

Ten generations later, the Laird family is still producing this historic spirit, making them the oldest distillers in the country.

The Laird family has been distilling apple brandy applejack, cider spirits, which are all synonymous for over 300 years.

My four-greats grandfather, Robert Laird, along with his brother Richard, were Revolutionary War dragoons under the command of General George Washington.

And also, George Washington had asked my ancestor on how to produce Applejack.

You know, it's very well known now that George Washington was the largest distiller of his time, and not only was he producing whiskeys, but he was producing some cider spirits as well.

It's been passed down through the family that we supplied the troops with Applejack, which I'm sure helped keep them warm.

[Narrator] Throughout the following century, the production of Applejack soared and was being exported nationwide.

During Prohibition, Laird and Company continued to produce nonalcoholic products until 1933, when they were granted a federal license to produce apple brandy for medicinal purposes.

[old film reel sounds] [1920s music] During prohibition, Applejack was a very popular bootleg product.

Post Prohibition, all of these little bootleggers went into legal production.

There were 388 Applejack or cider distilleries in the state of New Jersey alone.

So there was a huge demand for the product.

We have Internal revenue bonded warehouse number one.

Distilled spirits permit number one.

[Narrator] Post prohibition business was booming, so the Laird family acquired two additional distilleries in the early 1940's.

Including the current site of all their production in North Garden, Virginia.

[Lisa] Kind of brings us full circle with our history that we are distilling 100% of our apple brandy in this historic region.

Right down the road we have Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, James Monroe, James Madison.

They're all very close, as well as George Washington.

And those founders were enjoying our Applejack 300 years ago.

[Music] [Walter] For the main course of our beautiful menu today, I'm making pork scallopini with a very unique stuffing.

It requires a good stock that we started earlier.

So now I got a dutchie right over here, or a Dutch pot, and I'm making the stuffing first because the stuffing will then later sit aside until I finish my pork scallopini.

A little bit of oil.

All right.

So basically here we go, we've got the onion, garlic, the shallots in there.

We've got a beautiful heat going.

The bacon will cook with that and give a lot of flavor.

Oh, beautiful.

Music to my ears.

I'm going to put the mushrooms in.

[Sizzling] In celebration of apples today, I have the apples already cut.

The apple, obviously, later will slowly disintegrate.

So basically all I want to do is get this beautiful sauteed.

Look at that, I've got a fantastic fire I've got here.

And now I want to get a little bit of that stock that we got here.

Okay.

And now, before we put the barley and the bread crumbs into it, and the walnuts, we're going to deglaze that by utilizing the apple brandy.

As you already know, whenever I cook with spirits, regardless what it is, I've always put it in a separate bowl because I don't want the bottles to ignite, which means that it creates a molotov cocktail and your house could be on fire or you could be seriously hurt.

[Sizzling] Beautiful, oh gosh, the flavor.

Oh, man, It doesn't get better than that.

So the apple would be the indicator to see how your stuffing is going.

Perfect timing.

It's still crisp and obviously very sweet.

Now we're going to put the walnut into it.

[Gentle piano music] Put my 'A Taste of History' seasoning in there.

It has nutmeg, It has a little cinnamon, which is perfect for in here.

Here we go.

This is the barley.

Precooked.

The reason for that is the barley takes about 45 minutes to cook.

And really was a major starch in the 18th century as well.

And now the breadcrumbs, and then you have the stock to the side.

This will determine how much stock you need.

A little bit more should do it.

Now we've got to stir this all up really good.

What a dynamite recipe.

Yup!

I always tell people you can always add, but you can never take away.

I want to bring this down here to the landing so that I can stir it up better.

So remember, there's still a lot of liquid in the mushroom and the onion and the apples that will evaporate itself.

I'm going to give it a quick taste to make sure that all the flavors are in there properly.

Wow.

Wow, that's really beautiful.

The beauty about cooking with Dutch pots or iron pots is that they'll cook by itself because they attract the heat.

So it's going to simmer through, and it really doesn't need much more.

So let's find out more about the making of apple brandy.

[Upbeat music] [Lisa] Welcome, Chef Staib.

We are where it all begins with our apple brandy.

We are in Albemarle County, outside of Charlottesville, right near the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And here is one of the orchards that we collect the apples for our Laird's applejack.

[Walter] Without this beautiful apple the world would be so worse off.

[Laughs] [Lisa] I totally agree with that statement.

[Walter] Down here in this part of the world to me is almost sacred because obviously, you know, I'm a big aficionado for Thomas Jefferson.

Monticello is right up the street from here.

I grew up, in what we call a gentleman's farm my grandfathers.

We have maybe 30 apple trees.

Our friend Thomas Jefferson had about 100.

Just imagine if Thomas Jefferson could be here today and see the technique that you're growing that.

[Lisa] It looks like a vineyard.

It's a trellis system.

It's a beautiful innovation that Crown Orchards started here about ten years ago.

It's more trees per acreage.

They're getting more yield of the apples.

It's much easier to harvest.

We do not use cider apples.

We use the everyday apple that you would find in a grocery store.

So we use some Red Delicious, Golden Delicious Jonathan's, Granny Smith, Gala.

And then obviously what we have here is the Pink Lady.

[Walter] And I will take the first bite.

The only thing missing here is a picnic.

Had I known about that, you know?

[Apple crunch] Oh, gosh, There's only one word for it: Spectacular.

[Lisa] North Garden is a very special, historic distillery.

We purchased it in 1941.

It has been in operation as soon as prohibition was lifted.

Probably may have been used during prohibition, I'm not quite sure.

When you visit the facility, you're stepping back in time because we have not converted it into this new shiny distillery because if it's not broke, don't fix it.

We are the oldest distillers in the United States.

This is our history and we embrace our history.

[Danny] Walter I'd like to welcome you here to Laird & Company's distillery in North Garden Virginia.

[Walter] I can smell it right here.

[Danny] Yes [Walter] I mean, it's.

This whole area is full of flavors.

[Danny] It's a little hard working around it all day and just smelling it and not drinking it.

[Walter] Well, let me tell you, I have very seldomly been completely surprised today, though, when I saw 53,000 pounds of apples getting delivered.

[Danny] Yeah, the apple-lanche.

The apple-lanche is pretty cool.

[Walter] Oh golly is that ever.

How do we make it from an apple into this beautiful product of apple brandy like you're known for?

[Danny] As we need them we open up these little small doors down there and gravity takes them down into the water.

So they just work their way around, just like an apple river.

So they get through the conveyor, which takes them up to the grinder.

Here we'll probably ground 4 or 5 million pounds of apples this year in the fall.

And we try to get a lot of sweeter apples and then mix them with the tart to try to get to a happy medium and keep the Brix up and the sugar as high as we can so we have a consistent product.

As they go through the grinder, they end up pumped over into the squeeze boxes.

The guys fill them all way up, get them as full as they can, and then they're slowly pressed.

The cider goes down into the bottom and the pummus goes out on a conveyor to trucks, to be fed to the cattle.

So once the cider tank is full down here in the cider mill, it's pumped up into these fermenters over here which hold 14,000 gallons.

And then once they're full, we wait for it to ferment.

We're not allowed to add sugar.

We only get the sugar that's in the apples.

So if it's a good year for sugar, it's a good year for brandy.

[Lisa] So once all of the sugar is converted to alcohol we immediately go into the still and then we distill that beautiful, fermented hard cider into our apple distillate.

Our fresh apple brandy, which comes off the still about 165 proof product comes off the still it goes into our receiving room to bring the proof down to 130.

We find that has been the sweet spot for us, for our aging process.

And we have a historic barrel warehouse up here in New Jersey and then it ages here up till 12 years, depending on whatever product we're producing.

Unlike bourbon and other spirits, we can age in any barrel.

We can age in new, we can age in used.

We have found that once-used bourbon has produced the best brandy for us.

Apple brandy is very delicate and wood can easily overtake the aroma and flavor of the apple.

And we're making apple brandy.

We're producing Applejack, and we want to retain as much of the apple flavor and aroma as possible.

[Walter] I don't think you're going to have a shortage anytime [Laughs] on apple brandy.

[Lisa] It goes on and on.

[laughs] [Music] [Lisa] So, Chef, now that you've seen the entire process, we get to the fun part.

We get to taste some of our apple brandy.

This is our Lairds Straight Applejack 86, aged three years.

Historically, in the colonial times, you know the barrels were used as storage, not so much as aging.

So this is very close to what my ancestors were consuming.

Keep your mouth open.

Breathe in through your nose.

Fresh apple characteristics, the cinnamon, some spice, a little bit of vanilla.

[Walter] I see myself standing on the orchard picking up the apple.

I'm not kidding you.

It comes so clearly through after all this time.

[Lisa] That's exactly what we're looking for.

[Walter] Mmm!

[Walter] It has a beautiful finish.

Just like, the only problem, you'd have with that you could not just drink one.

[Laughs] But it's really, really beautiful.

The cleanliness, the flavor.

Obviously, it's crisp.

[Lisa] It's like a crisp autumn day in a glass.

[Walter] You got it.

[Music] [Walter] The stuffing is absolutely fantastic and cooking away, it's almost done.

Now it's time to concentrate on the pork scallopini.

And the pork scallopini what I recommend is a pork tenderloin.

And trim down what we call the silver skin and flatten it out.

Here we go.

[Flattening] I have some already made up front.

I have a technique where I season my flour, salt in the flour.

I put some of my 'Taste of History' seasoning some pepper into the flour.

And my 'Taste of History' seasoning already has nutmeg into it, but for this recipe, not enough.

That should do it.

Mix my flour.

Every scallopini be seasoned the same way.

The beauty about this recipe, it's a beautiful recipe to make for entertaining.

So now I want to get this dutchie hot.

A little bit of oil Look at that.

[Sizzling] It's just absolutely beautiful.

What's nice about the scallopini is that you can cut them any size you want.

Cooking time about 2 minutes or so each side.

Obviously cooking on open fire, it's a lot faster.

Matter of fact here, there we go.

Look at that, how gorgeous.

Alright, let's deglaze that.

Little bit of apple brandy in there.

[Brandy ignites] [sizzling] Please be super careful when you do that.

Don't do what I do.

I'm crazy!

[laughs] If you do that put very little into it but obviously the flavor that comes off that stove is like second to none.

So the menu is coming to its conclusion.

So now the final step is to make the sauce.

So the same pot that I cooked the scallopini, I'm going to add in onion, shallots and mushroom.

So you want to put this into it, let it cook for a bit until just the wilt.

Now, a dusting of flour over it.

And it's just regular all purpose flour.

AP A good amount of red wine in there.

Now, this recipe with a sweet wine wouldn't work so let me see.

It's nice and dry.

Oh, it's actually beautiful.

Yeah.

Gorgeous.

[Laughs] It don't get better.

That really is good.

And then a good spoon of dijon mustard.

Now all we need is a little bit of cream.

So I pulled the stuffing off.

Now, in the style of the 18th century, I'll put the stuffing on the bottom of the platter.

All right.

And then I have my scallopini.

Lay them right on top.

Now, the sauce, which I consider the piéce de résistance.

The flavors are like, unbelievable.

So I'm just going to drizzle.

I have a beautiful sprig of parsley over here.

I just think this dish speaks for itself.

I am very, very ecstatic and happy to show it to you because it's a lot of work, but it is fantastic.

What a spectaclular flavor and how well the apple brandy comes through it.

[Music] Now it's time for the grand finale of this exciting menu.

So we're making the Apple Flambé.

Flambé basically is any kind of fruit, I happen to use apples today, that you deglaze with any kind of spirit.

So by cooking it the alcohol evaporates, but the flavor stays within it.

I have some butter in there.

Apple brandy in there.

[Sizzling] There we go.

I soaked cranberry and I soaked the raisins in applejack.

I'll let this simmer just a tad.

And let the brown sugar have a chance to warm up and melt.

Here we go.

Look at that.

It's cooking beautifully.

Oh, golly.

That is really good.

Cinnamon bark well, most people have never seen it looks like that when it comes to our American factories.

And then it gets turned into what we know of as cinnamon.

[Grating] The flavor is no comparison.

Perfect.

Let it sit.

I'm going to be starting on the whipped cream.

Heavy cream [Whisking] whisk it to a peak.

So basically this goes on top of the apples, with a little cinnamon on top, [Grating] and voila, your dessert is served.

Spectacular is the word.

It is absolutely divine.

My flambé is so spectacular because the flambé ignites the flavors and brings to the forefront the deliciousness of the apple, the cranberry, the raisins, a spectacular dessert.

All this for A Taste of History.

[Narrator] This program is made possible by: Pasture-raised Australian beef and lamb Adding variety into your weekly meals or a unique touch for your next celebration.

Widely available at your local market.

For recipes and more, we're at aussiebeefandlamb.com Viewers can find DVD's and cookbooks at atasteofhistory.org Including the all new A Taste of History cookbook, complete with step by step instructions of recipes seen on the show.

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