Wisconsin’s comedian laureate, Charlie Berens, is releasing an original brandy with Dancing Goat Distillery from Cambridge, Wisconsin. It’s called Original Berens Old Fashioned Brandy, and you can find it in stores across Wisconsin this week, when it launches.
A bottle of the 90-proof brandy will run you $25 at Waterford Wine and Spirits on the East Side, where it’s available now. (We got our hands on an early bottle and are planning to do a little taste-testing for you folks this week – check back in to read more.)
“Naming a brandy after yourself is egotistical,” Berens writes. “That’s why I named it Berens Old Fashioned Brandy after my Grandpa Bob. I can’t help it we got the same last name. Grandpa Bob is the most Wisconsin guy I ever met, and this is the most Wisconsin Brandy we could make. Berens Old Fashioned Brandy is made from the best grapes in the US. And just like me and Grandpa, it’s aged in Wisconsin. Pairs well with cheese, fishing, weddings, funerals, deep camp, and of course, old fashioneds. Before you sip, cheers it to the sky, Grandpa Bob’s up there in heaven cheersing back … and waiting for his cut.”
Besides his always-popular YouTube channel, home of the “Manitowoc Minute,” Berens is also a New York Times-bestselling author of The Midwest Survival Guide: How We Talk, Love, Work, Drink, and Eat … Everything with Ranch. You can watch his 2023 standup special at the Riverside Theater here.
And read more about his career in this Milwaukee Magazine cover story.
