Bob and Kathe Bartlett, owners of the award-winning Bartlett Maine Estate Winery in Gouldsboro, are now part of a growing trend in U.S. wineries who have added a distillery to their vino operations. The company is using a hand-hammered copper still made in Germany to produce batches of Apple Brandy and Pear Brandy. The Beverage Testing Institute recently rated Bartlett’s apple brandy with eighty-eight points, one of its highest ratings. Bob Bartlett says producing spirits is much harder than wine-making. “The big thing is in wine there’s a lot of ways you can hide things,” he says. Apples, pears, and raspberries are fairly simple to distill, but peaches take a lot of work for the true flavor to come across. Lots of brandies in the United States are made with alcohol and flavorings, but the Bartletts make their brandy from fruit only.
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