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Apple Jack - the natives call it Jersey Lightnin' - Heritage Tradition
heard about in the movie: From Stolen Life starring Betty Davis

In this romantic melodrama, Bette Davis plays twin sisters for the first time (she would do so again in 1964's Dead Ringer). Kate Bosworth (Davis) is a sincere, demure girl and talented artist. Her twin sister Pat (also Davis) is a flamboyant, man-hungry manipulator.

Unlike aged apple brandies, this white lightning is produced by a process known as “jacking,” in which cold temperatures work to separate the water and alcohol by taking advantage of their different freezing points. The water freezes into ice and is strained out of the mixture while the ethyl alcohol remains liquid, resulting in a higher alcohol concentration. Applejack was an old standby of the early colonists and, also known as “Jersey Lightning,” was favored during Prohibition for its comparative ease of home brewing. A local affectionate name in New England for applejack was “essence of lockjaw.”

By 1685, New Englanders settling in New Jersey were busy establishing apple cultivation on a large scale. Cider had been their favorite drink. It could be fermented for a hard cider or fermented and distilled to make brandy, or if you prefer, Jersey Lightning. A method popular in New England was simply to freeze the cider and discard the ice. Some of the cider was made into vinegar which was used in cooking and preserving.

The Ideal Bartender, Tom Bullock, 1917 JERSEY LIGHTNING COCKTAIL

Use large Mixing glass; fill with Lump Ice.

1 jigger Apple Jack Brandy.
1 pony Italian Vermouth.
Stir well; strain and serve in Cocktail glass.

Heritage Drinks
"Apple jack is made by taking hard cider and putting it outside when the temperature is below freezing, or by placing in your freezer. When the cider begins to freeze pour the unfrozen 1iquid into a container. The unfrozen liquid is apple jack. Apple jack is a delicious drink, but a word of caution is in order. You might not taste the alcohol in apple jack, but the beverage is very potent. When frozen, water is removed leaving a beverage with a much higher octane rating than the 10-12 % of hard cider
If you don't have any hard cider handy, I made a tasty version using a fifth of Apple Schnapps mixed with a fifth of apple cider. I put the mixture into two quart jars, and put them in the freezer. It took about eight hours for the liquid to begin to freeze."


Whole Story
Randolph Reporter
By Tamara Scully

Randolph TWP

Apples were big business in Randolph, and the surrounding areas of Morris County, since the
Revolutionary War times.

  As a matter of fact, most of today's housing developments
were probably once apple orchards. The soil and terrain here were suitable
to orchard crops, and apple and peach orchards were prevalent.

  Bill Wilkie, a railroad and history buff from the Mendham
area, presented this intoxicating lesson in local history to a crowd of 40
or so people gathered in the community room of the Randolph Township Free
Public Library.

  According to Wilkie, many families produced an excess of
apples, even after making pies, canning and drying the fruit, and storing
some of the crop for winter consumption.

  There wasn't much of a local market for apples- everyone
grew them- and the fruit would get damaged in transit to more urban areas
which, at that time, were served by Bergen County farms.

  With apples readily available, cider was routinely
processed. It was the main beverage of choice for colonial Americans. Water
was not readily accessible, and because of water-borne illnesses, it was not
always safe.

  Hard cider had a long shelf-life, so it was always
available, well after the harvest. It was the beverage, consumed by all
members of the family, to quench thirst.

  Enterprising businessmen took cider a few steps further.
First, as sweet cider fermented, hard apple cider was produced. Hard cider
was about 60 proof. When a second distillation was made, the resulting 120
proof liquor was then diluted down to 100 proof, and the barrels aged. The
result was an 80 proof product that, when bottled, became known as Apple
Brandy, or Apple Jack, or "Jersey Lightning." A booming business was born,
Wilkie said.

  "Farmers would take their apples to the cider mill, and
the mill owner would keep a percentage of the juice in payment. To distill
that juice in to Jersey Lightning was to make a sought-after product from a
commonplace staple. It was big business."

  Entertaining them with a slide show to accompany his
commentary, Wilkie kept the audience's attention as he explained the lore of
Jersey Lightning.

  The legal distiller had to pay the tax man. And, he had to
pay taxes on all of the 100 proof liquor he made, Wilkie explained.

  "Unfortunately, that meant that he was paying for alcohol
that wouldn't exist when the product was finished and ready for sale."

  "Government measures how much you make at 100 proof and
levies a tax at the time its made," Wilkie explained. However, the product
is then aged for 3-7 additional years, and by that time, a good amount of
evaporation has occurred. That taxed product that later evaporated was known
to distillers as the "angel's share," Wilkie said.

  The distiller also had to store his barrels in a special
structure, with steel doors and indows, which became known as a "Lincoln
house".

  This was to ensure that no one ould get to the product
before the tax man levied the appropriate taxes. A certificate of axation
was then affixed to the barrels with a tack and shellacked in place.

  Apple Brandy was "one of the largest industries in the
state of New Jersey from the early 1800s through to the Civil War," Wilkie
stated.

  With major stage-coach routes between Easton, Pa and the
ports of New Jersey and New York ity running through Morris County, Jersey
Lightning found markets elsewhere. Unlike the raw product, apples, the
liquor would not bruise or rot during the arduous trips. Because the route
took more than one day to traverse, travelers would have to stay overnight
in local inns.

  "They were served Jersey Apple ack."

  That, stated Wilkie, is how the reputation of the local
apple brandy spread, and how "Jersey Lightning" became known far and wide.

  Civil War to Prohibition

  "The fame of the New Jersey Apple Brandy became known and
it became, between 1804 and the ivil War, the largest cash crop in ew
Jersey," Wilkie said.

  According to the 1830 census, here were 388 legal
distilleries in New Jersey. Fifty-three of those were in Morris County, and
four of those were in Randolph ownship. Nearby Roxbury Township had dozens
more, and Chester had five. unterdon and Warren Counties ere also home to
many distilleries.

  During the Civil War, the government imposed a very high
$2 per barrel tax on the Apple Jack. Coupled with the loss of business from
the southern states, distillers were hit ard. And railroads made the
stage-coach routes all but obsolete.

  Following the war, the use of alcohol in the United States
more than quadrupled, according to ilkie, perhaps offsetting some of the
loss of business and profits the distillers had suffered. This, however, set
the stage for the next era in the saga of the distilleries: Prohibition. The
18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, ushered in the age of
Prohibition, and no distillery was legal.

  Lasting 14 years, Prohibition was an era of illegal
distilleries, many of which undoubtedly were found here in Morris County. At
least one known mill, that on Route 4 in Ralston, did stop its production
around the time of Prohibition.

  It's machinery was left relatively unchanged since then.
Inside, the belts, pulleys, and presses remain. The mill, recently acquired
by Mendham Township, produced Tiger Apple Jack, from approximately
1906-1920.

  Some distilleries and Lincoln ouses found new uses
following the demise of the Jersey Lightning heyday.

  On Route 24, near Parker Road in Chester, Wilkie reports
that the stone house, now a vicarage for the Episcopal Church, was once a
distillery. It was known as the Mountain Spring Distillery, and its incoln
house remains intact on an adjacent property.

  The most prominent of the Randolph distilleries is also
now a home. At the intersection of Park Avenue and Sussex Turnpike, in the
Ironia section of the township, is the Bryant Distillery.

  Now a beautifully restored home, the Landmarks Committee
of Randolph Township has honored it with a plaque.

  The location of the other distilleries is not certain. It
is known that about 1,000 gallons of apple brandy were legally made in
Randolph Township during the days of Jersey Lightning.

  Most evidence of such production as long since
disappeared.

  Jack Hopkins found the presentation enlightening in many
ways.

  "It was an interesting talk that ombined some local
history with a look at some of the economic realities in colonial New
Jersey," he stated.

  Another audience member, John Oehler, was unaware of the
legacy of Apple Jack distillers in Randolph Township.

  "I had to attend the recent resentation at the Randolph
Library to find out. I was not disappointed with the history lesson and
great presentation," he said.

  The person responsible for scheduling these popular
presentations is Deborah Rood Goldman, the programming manager at the
library.