Liquid Assets: Applejack and cider brighten the season

After a day of grazing at the Bayfield Apple Festival in northern Wisconsin -- apple brats, apple dumplings, apple toffee, cider sorbet -- we hit a tiny bar just off crowd-packed Main Street. But its cocktail specials, with the likes of appletini and applejito, took the theme too far.

We were cold; we were thirsty. October's drizzle hadn't dampened the crowds for the apple-peeling and pie-eating contests or the live music drifting down Main Street. This old-timey celebration deserved a classic cocktail tribute to salute the all-American fruit, and the apple-inspired day.

"How about a hot mulled cider?" asked our bartender, noticing me shiver through my soaked nylon jacket. The steamy potion was tangy, spicy, maple-sweet and applejack-fired, and it warmed me from the inside out. Comforting yet lively, it was a taste of fall, a toast to the glorious season.

Applejack is the distilled spirit of cider, America's answer to Calvados. This French apple brandy hails from Normandy's renowned apple-growing farms. Centuries ago, French Voyageurs, trappers and traders brought their apple spirit to Lake Superior's shores. Applejack, distilled from fresh cider, spends at least two years in wooden casks before it can be released for sale, though longer aging improves character, body and taste.

The best-known brand, Laird's, comes from New Jersey, but many people in this region remember their grandparents distilling their own. With today's interest in local foods and craft spirits, several small companies are getting into the act. Yahara Bay of Madison, Wis., for example, turns cider pressed from heirloom apples into a liquor that's oaky, mellow and light.

Fresh cider makes a perfect autumn cocktail. It's crisp and refreshing, yet more substantial than summer's fizzy tonics and spritzers. When Indian Summer's sun blazes the birches golden and the maples red, try this lively Apple Crisp, over ice to cool and refresh. And when the weather turns damp and dank, hot mulled cider will chase the chills away.

Beth Dooley of Minneapolis is the author of the new "The Northern Heartland Kitchen" (University of Minnesota Press).