Buy Brandy Online in Wisconsin (2026): The Brandy Old Fashioned, Supper Clubs & the Bottles That Actually Make It

Wisconsin drinks more brandy per person than any other state in America, and it is not close. Korbel — the California producer whose brandy is effectively the state's house spirit — sells roughly 60% of its entire brandy output into Wisconsin alone. A state with under 2% of the country's population takes the majority of a national brand's production. Nothing else in American drinking geography looks like this.

The reason is the brandy old fashioned, Wisconsin's unofficial state cocktail and the default order at every supper club from Kenosha to Superior. The usual origin story traces it to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where Wisconsin's large German immigrant population encountered Cognac and took to it, and brandy stuck as the base spirit long after the rest of the country settled on whiskey. Order an old fashioned in Wisconsin without specifying and you will get brandy, muddled fruit, and a soda call you were expected to make.

This page is for anyone in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, the Fox Valley or Door County who wants better bottles than the local shelf offers. Everything below is in stock and ships. If it is whiskey you are after instead, we also keep a Wisconsin bourbon page.

How a Wisconsin old fashioned is actually built

The Wisconsin version departs from the classic in two specific ways, and both matter if you are stocking a home bar for it.

First, the fruit goes in before the spirit. Sugar, several dashes of bitters, an orange slice and a cherry are muddled together in the bottom of the glass into a rough paste — not expressed over the top as a garnish. Second, the drink is lengthened with soda, and the call you make determines what you get: sweet means lemon-lime soda, sour means a grapefruit soda like Squirt or a sour mix, and press means half lemon-lime and half club soda. Ask for it "brandy old fashioned sweet" and every bartender in the state knows exactly what to pour.

The bitters are not optional and are the one place where the drink rewards spending. Angostura 200th Anniversary Bitters ($74.09) is the reference bottle; Peychaud'S Aromatic Cocktail Bitters ($12.99) brings more anise and floral lift if you want a variation. For the cherry, skip the neon-red supermarket jar — Luxardo Il Maraschino Originale ($43.99) is the marasca cherry liqueur behind the good ones, and a splash of it in the muddle does more for the drink than any upgrade to the base spirit. Lengthen with Fever Tree Club Soda 4PK 200ML ($7.99) if you want the press version done properly, and browse the full Mixers collection for the rest.

The brandy: what to actually buy

Most Wisconsin households pour the same two or three bottles out of habit. Here is the ladder, from the honest everyday bottle to the one worth opening at Thanksgiving.

The traditional pour. Korbel Brandy ($16.99) is the bottle the state is built on — a California grape brandy, light and clean, designed to disappear into muddled fruit and soda rather than assert itself. If you want the authentic supper club drink, this is not a compromise, it is the correct answer. E & J Distillers Brandy V.S.O.P. ($15.09) sits in the same bracket and does the same job.

The upgrade that changes the drink. Asbach Uralt Brandy ($37.09) is a German brandy with real oak and a nutty, raisiny depth that stands up to the fruit instead of hiding behind it. Try it once in an old fashioned and you may not go back. Gran Duque D'Alba Brandy ($49.99) is the Spanish Brandy de Jerez equivalent — solera-aged in old sherry casks, so it brings dried fig and walnut into the glass.

The bottle for after dinner. Cardenal Mendoza Brandy De Jerez Nebulis Rare Cask Finished ($59.99) and Torres 20 Year Hors d'Age Brandy ($69.90) are both sipping brandies rather than mixing ones. Pour either neat in a copita after the fish fry and the whole category will make more sense to you.

The fruit brandies. Wisconsin's German and Central European heritage runs deeper than the old fashioned. Schladerer Kirschwasser Black Forest Cherry Brandy ($47.99) is a genuine Black Forest kirschwasser — dry, clear, intensely cherry-stone — and Kammer Williams Pear in Bottle Brandy ($69.99) is the famous Williams pear brandy with a whole pear grown inside the bottle. Leroux Kirsch Cherry Flavored Brandy ($16.99) is the affordable everyday kirsch. Browse the full Brandy collection for the rest.

If you would rather drink cognac

Cognac is brandy — specifically, grape brandy from a delimited region of southwestern France, twice distilled in copper pot stills and aged in French oak. Everything Wisconsin likes about brandy is present in cognac with more structure and more money attached. The Cognac collection runs from everyday VS bottles through XO, and it is the natural next step for anyone who has worked through the brandies above.

Bourbon in Wisconsin, briefly

Not everyone in the state orders brandy, and the whiskey old fashioned has been gaining ground with younger drinkers in Milwaukee and Madison. Bulleit Bourbon 10 x 50ml minis ($44.09) is the sensible cocktail bottle for it, and Elijah Craig Small Batch ($40.99) is the value benchmark for sipping. Our separate guide to buying bourbon online in Wisconsin covers that side of the shelf, and the full Bourbon collection is worth a browse. Ahead of Bourbon Heritage Month, our guide to bourbon made outside Kentucky is a good place to start, and what makes a bourbon a bourbon covers the rules.

Shipping to Wisconsin

We ship to Wisconsin addresses from our New Jersey warehouse. Orders typically arrive within two to four business days to Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Appleton, Kenosha, Racine, Eau Claire and Door County, with northern Wisconsin running toward the longer end of that window. An adult over 21 must be present to sign for delivery — no exceptions, and the carrier will not leave the package.

Two practical notes. Late August through September is the best shipping window of the year: the summer heat that can cook a bottle in a delivery truck has passed, and the winter freeze that can crack glass in a northern Wisconsin January has not arrived. And if you are buying for the holidays, order by early December — Wisconsin is far enough from New Jersey that December weather delays are routine.

Start here

Browse the full Brandy collection for everything above, the Cognac collection if you want to trade up, and new arrivals for what has just landed. Free shipping applies over $199 in most states.