What does good Calvados taste like?

[t1mmclarn]

There are a number of cocktails that I have been looking forward to trying that include Calvados. I looked up Calvados online and found it is a drink that can be VERY expensive. I purchased one imported from France, not cheap but mid range. I made one of the cocktails and found it to be one of the hardest drinks I have tasted in a long time. The Calvados taste like an old gym sock! Can somebody tell me if this is what Calvados is meant to last like or did I make a crappy choice? It has a very pungent aftertaste!

 

The Calvados I purchased is called Château du Breuil.

 

Thanks

[FrogPrincesse]

It's a bit like cognac or armagnac with an apple flavor. No weird aftertaste.

[ChrisTaylor]

See above. See Eric Bordelet's Calvados. Crazy expensive but good.

EDIT

 

In my admittedly limited experience, Calvados is not like, say, bourbon or regular brandy. You can get cheaper examples of regular brandy that taste just fine. As complex as the great stuff? No. But still good. Most of the cheaper Calvados I've had has been shit. The only one I've been truly blown away by was expensive.

[EvergreenDan]

I haven't had any weird aftertaste or old sock taste (which is strangely appealing to me -- isn't that what Batavia Arrack is??), but inexpensive Calvados is like an eau de vie -- often like firewater straight. Dupont makes many expressions, varying widely in price. At least some of them are very good.

 

You can often mix with a Calvados that you would not want to sip. Same thing for brandy/cognac.

[rlibkind]

Try Laird's 7-1/2 year old apple brandy. It's not calvados but eminently drinkable. A bit fruitier in flavor than good calvados, but definitely not firewater.

[Hassouni]

How is the Dupont "fine reserve" (réservé?)?

[t1mmclarn]

Ok sounds like I may have made a bad choice. Ill see if I can find another brand.

[Lisa Shock]

You might have a bad bottle. It doesn't happen very often with spirits, but it can happen. The distributors replace bad bottles for the store, so, the store should be fine with you returning it. I used to manage a wine store/bar and we had a day once a week when bad bottles would be picked up and replaced for us.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Admittedly I am but an amateur but I have never encountered a bad bottle of any spirit.  Nor, I confess, have I ever tried a bottle of Breuil.  However from my primary source of information about about Calvados:  Charles Neil, Calvados the Spirit of Normandy, Flame Grape Press, 2011, Chateau du Breuil is reasonably well regarded.

 

"Overall, the releases at Breuil are well-crafted and pure.  Perhaps like the country of origin of the chateau's current owners, they are classy and discreet.  They are one of the better industrial producers in the region."

 

Possibly the original poster does not care for Calvados?

[Czequershuus]

I do not have much experience with Calvados, in fact I only have one cheap bottle myself, but the gym sock description does lead we to wonder if it may be a bad bottle. My cheap little bottle of Pere Magloire, while certainly not earth-shattering, is quite bright and nice. Subtler than my Laird's BIB, but not funky or strange flavors. 

[pto]

The Château du Breuil is one of the two or three that are easily available over here. I remember before buying, I read reviews of about it and the overall impression was that it was very lackluster at the lower end of their range. Nobody was saying anything about gym socks though or off flavors. I ended up choosing the other brand that's availabl: Berneroy, and have stuck with it. I like it a lot, as have my guests. I will borrow the description from above that's it's nice and bright, nice subtle apple aromas.