A distiller's guide · Bezalel Estate

What is Potstill brandy?

Potstill brandy is brandy distilled from wine in small batches in a copper pot still, usually twice, and then aged for at least three years in oak casks of no more than 340 litres. In South Africa the name is protected by law: it must be 100% pot-still spirit, bottled at 38% alcohol or more.

pot-still spirit, by South African law
100%
in oak casks of 340 litres or less
3 yrs+
through copper, one batch at a time
2×
strength of the heart as it leaves the still
≈ 70%

01 · The word

Potstill brandy meaning

“Brandy” comes from the Dutch brandewijn, “burnt wine”: wine that has been through the fire of a still. English speakers said “brandy-wine” in the 1620s and had shortened it to brandy by 1657. In Afrikaans it is still brandewyn.

“Potstill” names the still, not a flavour or an age. A pot still is the oldest kind of still: a copper pot heated one batch at a time, with a head and a pipe that carry the vapour away and cool it back into liquid. Potstill brandy is brandy made only in such a still. The law writes it as two words, pot still brandy. South African labels usually close it up into one word: potstill.

Pot

A copper vessel that holds one batch of wine over the fire.

Still

From “distil”, Latin for “to drip down”: vapour cooled back into drops.

02 · The still

The copper pot still

A pot still is simple, and that's the point. Every part the spirit touches is copper. South African potstill brandy has been double-distilled in copper pot stills since 1924, when the Wine and Spirits Act made it the standard. The design is a close cousin of the Charentais alembic used in Cognac.

  1. The heat From fire to element

    Heat from below brings the charge to the boil. It must be gentle and steady: rush a pot still and the spirit turns coarse. Our first stills were fired with wood, then with gas. Today every one of them runs on PTC ceramic electric elements, which hold an even, controllable heat through the whole run.

  2. The pot Boiler · chaudière

    The pot holds one charge of wine. When the run is over it is emptied and cleaned before the next. That stop-start rhythm is what “batch” means, and it is the legal heart of the word: South African law says pot-still spirit is distilled discontinuously, in batches.

  3. The helmet Head · chapiteau

    Alcohol boils at 78.3 °C and water at 100 °C, so the first vapour to rise is rich in alcohol and aroma. The helmet gathers it. Its shape decides how much vapour cools on the copper and runs back into the pot. Distillers call this reflux, and it sets how light or heavy the spirit will be. Ours are hand-hammered onion heads.

  4. The swan neck Lyne arm · col de cygne

    A long, slender copper pipe carries the vapour away from the helmet. Along the way it keeps touching copper, which cleans it (see below).

  5. The condenser Worm · serpentin

    A copper coil runs down through a tank of cold water. The vapour gives up its heat and runs out as clear spirit, drop by drop. This is the “still” in pot still: from the Latin destillare, to drip down. At Bezalel our first two stills, the Twins, share a single condenser.

  6. The spirit safe Receiver

    Here the distiller watches the spirit's strength and smell and decides where to cut it: the heads, the heart and the tails. Only the heart becomes brandy.

Why copper?

Copper isn't there for looks. As the vapour runs over the metal, copper binds sulphur compounds such as hydrogen sulphide, which smell of rotten eggs and cooked vegetables. They stay behind on the still's walls as copper sulphide. The more the spirit touches the copper, the cleaner it runs. Copper also spreads heat evenly and is easy to shape by hand.

03 · The process

How potstill brandy is made

One wine, two passes through copper, and at least three years in oak. Scroll through the seven stages to follow the wine from the vine to the glass. Every Bezalel brandy is double-distilled.

From vine to bottle: grapes, a fermentation tank, a copper pot still with three receivers, an oak barrel and a bottle
Illustration: the path of potstill brandy, from vineyard to bottle.

  1. Step 1High acid, low sugar

    Grapes, picked early

    South African brandy usually starts with white grapes, mainly Chenin Blanc and Colombard, picked earlier than they would be for table wine. Early fruit has plenty of acid and less sugar. The acid keeps the wine sound without sulphur, and the low sugar gives a light wine whose aromas concentrate when it is distilled.

    Ours is different: our base wine is half white Colombard and half red Port cultivars, Tinta Barocca, Touriga Francesa and Touriga Nacional, all grown on the estate.

    Our liqueur-style Hanepoot Brandy

  2. Step 2≈ 10–11%

    A dry wine, with no sulphur

    The juice ferments into a dry white wine of about 10–11% alcohol. No sulphur is added. It protects table wine, but in a still it would carry through as harsh, struck-match notes. The wine goes to the still soon after fermentation, while its fruit is fresh.

  3. Step 3≈ 30%

    First distillation: low wines

    The wine is heated in the copper pot. Alcohol boils at 78.3 °C and water at 100 °C, so the vapour that rises carries more alcohol than the wine it came from. Cooled in the condenser, it becomes low wines: a cloudy spirit of about 30% alcohol, roughly a third of the wine's volume.

  4. Step 475% at most

    Second distillation, slowly

    The low wines go back into the pot for a second, slower run. This is where the distiller's skill shows. The spirit comes off strong and weakens as the run goes on. By law, South African pot-still spirit may not come off the still at more than 75% alcohol.

  5. Step 5≈ 70% heart

    The cut: heads, heart, tails

    The distiller divides the run into three. The heads come first, sharp and solvent-like, and are set aside. The heart follows: clean, fruity and floral, at around 70% alcohol. It is the only part that becomes brandy. As the strength falls, the oily tails arrive. Heads and tails are usually returned to the still with a later batch.

    Try making the cut yourself

  6. Step 63 years or more

    Years in small oak

    The heart goes into oak casks, most often French oak, for at least three years. For the first eight years the law allows casks of no more than 340 litres, one of the smallest limits in the brandy world. A small cask means more wood for every litre of spirit, and so more vanilla, spice, tannin and colour.

    At Bezalel we start in 300-litre casks and move the spirit into smaller ones as the angel's share takes its toll. Some of our brandy also ages in Port casks.

    Age a barrel yourself

  7. Step 738% or more

    Reduced and bottled

    Most producers taste, choose and marry casks together before bottling. At Bezalel every batch is a single-barrel release, with its own batch and bottle numbers. Clean water brings the spirit gently to drinking strength. South African potstill brandy must be bottled at no less than 38% alcohol.

    Depending on its age, every 750 ml bottle of our brandy takes about 6.5 to 7.2 litres of base wine.

    Bezalel VSOP Potstill Brandy

04 · The cut

Heads, heart and tails: making the cut

In the second distillation not every drop is equal. What runs off the still changes minute by minute. The distiller's job is to decide where the brandy begins and where it ends, judging by strength, by temperature and, above all, by nose.

Heads
The first spirit to run, rich in the most volatile compounds. They include acetaldehyde, which boils at 20.8 °C, and ethyl acetate, the smell of nail varnish, at 77.1 °C. Sharp and solvent-like. Set aside.
Heart
Mostly ethanol (78.3 °C), carrying the fruity esters and floral aromas of the wine. At about 70% alcohol this is the new spirit, and the only part that goes into oak.
Tails
As the alcohol in the pot runs down and its temperature climbs, heavier compounds arrive. They include fusel oils such as the amyl alcohols, which boil at up to about 132 °C. Oily and flat. Usually distilled again.

Your turn at the spirit safe

Start the run. Cut to the heart when the sharpness fades, and cut to the tails before it turns heavy.

—% alcohol off the still
On the nose—

05 · The wood

Time in oak and the angel's share

New spirit runs off the still as clear as water. The colour, the vanilla and the softness all come from time in oak. The oak takes its fee: every year a little spirit evaporates through the staves. Distillers call it the angel's share.

In a cool, damp cellar more alcohol than water escapes, so brandy slowly loses strength. In the dry air of the Northern Cape it works the other way: our barrels give up more water than alcohol, and our brandies end up stronger than they started. Over long ageing we lose up to 35% of the volume.

Drag the slider to age a barrel and watch it happen.

Choose a cellar
Left in the barrel
100 of every 100 litres
Colour
—
Strength in the barrel
As it left the still

  • Day one At Bezalel the new spirit goes into 300-litre casks, and moves into smaller ones as the angel's share takes its toll.
  • 3 years The legal minimum for South African potstill brandy, in oak casks of 340 litres or less.
  • 4 years The minimum for a Cognac VSOP.
  • 5 years Bezalel Rooibos Brandy and Hanepoot Brandy: five years in French oak. Rooibos Brandy
  • 6–8 years Bezalel VSOP Potstill Brandy, always from a single barrel. VSOP Potstill Brandy
  • 8 years The minimum for vintage brandy. From here the law allows casks of up to 1 000 litres.
  • 10 years The minimum for a Cognac XO.
  • 10–12 years Bezalel XO, aged 12 years. The first XO, a single one-off lot of Founder's Reserve XO, was aged 10.
  • 18–20 years Bezalel XXO. The first lot, a one-off Founder's Reserve XXO aged 20 years, is released in December 2026. Later releases will be aged 18.
  • Water-white Fiery and fresh: grape, pear and white flowers. Nothing from the wood yet.
  • Pale straw The first vanilla and a hint of toast. The fruit still leads.
  • Gold Vanilla, dried apricot, a little spice. The alcohol starts to soften.
  • Amber Toffee, dried fruit, clove and toasted nuts. Rounder and longer.
  • Deep amber Fruitcake, orange peel, leather and old wood. Silky.
  • Mahogany Dark, concentrated and savoury, with a long, dry finish. Here the wood can start to take over.

Colours and notes are illustrative, because every barrel ages differently. Cool-cellar figure: about 2% a year, as in Cognac. Bezalel figure: up to 35% of the volume over long ageing, shown here spread evenly over 20 years.

06 · Two kinds of still

Pot still vs column still

Every spirit starts in a still, but stills don't all work the same way. A pot still distils one batch and stops. A column still, patented by Aeneas Coffey in 1830, is fed continuously and strips the spirit much closer to pure alcohol.

The difference you taste is flavour. Stopping at around 70% keeps the congeners, the esters and aromatic compounds that carry the character of the grape. Column spirit is lighter, cleaner and more neutral, which is why South African blended brandy uses it to soften potstill brandy. As the distiller at Bezalel puts it, a column still would be very much faster. It would also make something else.

Pot stillOne batch at a time
Column stillContinuous, never stops
Pot still and column still compared
Pot stillColumn still
How it runsIn batches: fill, distil, empty, cleanContinuously, fed without stopping
InventedThe ancient alembic, refined over centuriesPatented by Aeneas Coffey in 1830
Strength off the stillNo more than 75% in South Africa; the heart is about 70%Up to about 95–96%
CharacterFuller: more fruit, body and textureLighter and more neutral
PaceSlow and hands-onFast and efficient
In South African brandyAll of potstill brandyUsually the rest of blended brandy (up to 70%)

07 · Cousins

Potstill brandy vs whisky and Cognac

Brandy and whisky are cousins, not twins. Both can be distilled twice in copper pot stills and aged in oak. The difference starts before the still. Brandy is distilled from wine, made from fermented grapes. Whisky is distilled from a fermented grain mash, in effect a beer without hops. Cognac is a brandy too: the brandy of one French region, made under its own rules.

South African potstill brandy, Cognac and Scotch malt whisky compared
SA potstill brandyCognacScotch malt whisky
Made fromWine from grapes, mainly Chenin Blanc and ColombardWine from grapes, mainly Ugni BlancMalted barley
StillPot still only, in batchesCharentais pot still over a naked flamePot stills
DistilledTwice, by traditionTwice, by lawUsually twice
Strength off the stillNo more than 75%Heart no more than 72.4%Below 94.8%
CaskOak, 340 litres or less (up to 1 000 litres after 8 years)French oakOak, 700 litres or less
Minimum age3 years2 years (VS), 4 (VSOP), 10 (XO)3 years
Minimum strength38%40%40%
Where fromSouth AfricaThe Cognac region of FranceScotland

Sources: Liquor Products Act 60 of 1989, regulations consolidated to March 2025; BNIC (Cognac); Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009.

08 · Read the label

Potstill, blended and vintage brandy

“Brandy” on a South African label can mean three different things. The difference is how much potstill brandy is in the bottle and how long it has spent in oak. All three are distilled from wine and matured in oak.

One more word to look for is estate. An estate brandy can only be made by a registered wine estate, from grapes grown on that estate. The wine is registered with SAWIS on a green card and tracked from pressing, through the barrel, to bottling.

Potstill brandy

Potstill brandy
100% pot-still spirit, distilled in batches to no more than 75%
Ageing
At least 3 years in oak casks of 340 litres or less
The rest
Nothing else. Bottled at 38% or more

The purest expression of South African brandy, made for sipping. Until 2014 the law allowed up to 10% unaged wine spirit in the blend; potstill brandy bottled since then must be 100% pot still. Bezalel's potstill brandies never used that allowance: they have been 100% pot still since our first official lot in 1996. You may also see potstill brandy labelled Cape brandy, a mark of origin for potstill brandy made from grapes grown and distilled in the Eastern, Northern or Western Cape.

Blended brandy

Potstill brandy
At least 30% potstill brandy, aged 3 years or more
Ageing
The rest needs no ageing
The rest
Up to 70% wine spirit, often from a column still. Bottled at 40% or more

South Africa's everyday brandy, labelled simply “brandy”, and the one behind the country's famous brandy-and-Coke. It is lighter and made to mix. Its minimum strength dropped from 43% to 40% in March 2025.

Vintage brandy

Potstill brandy
30–80% potstill brandy
Ageing
Every part at least 8 years in oak
The rest
20–70% wine spirit, also aged 8 years. Bottled at 38% or more

A blend in which every component, the pot-still spirit and the wine spirit alike, has spent at least eight years in oak. The label may show a number of years instead of the word “vintage”. That number must be the age of the youngest brandy in the bottle.

Source: regulations 12–14 under the Liquor Products Act 60 of 1989, consolidated to March 2025. VS, VSOP and XO have no legal meaning in South Africa. They are producers' conventions borrowed from Cognac.

09 · History

A short history of brandy

Brandy began as medicine and became a way to carry wine across the sea. Over a thousand years the alembic travelled from Arabic laboratories to the Charente, and then to the Cape.

  1. 800s

    Water from wine

    Arabic scholars describe distilling wine in the al-anbīq, the vessel that gives us the word alembic.

  2. 1270s

    Aqua vitae

    Physicians in Bologna call distilled wine aqua vitae, the water of life. Around 1300 Arnaldus de Villa Nova carries the name, and the medicine, across Europe.

  3. 1310

    Forty virtues

    Prior Vital du Four lists the forty virtues of aqua ardens, “burning water”. Armagnac still counts its history from him.

  4. 1500s

    Burnt wine

    Dutch traders distil the thin wines of France's Charente so that they survive the voyage north. They call it brandewijn: burnt wine.

  5. 1600s

    Twice through the still

    Cognac's distillers begin to distil twice. By 1657 English speakers have shortened “brandy-wine” to brandy.

  6. 1830

    The column still

    Aeneas Coffey patents a continuous still. It makes lighter spirit in far greater volumes, and the pot still becomes the craftsman's choice.

  7. 1909

    Cognac's borders

    France draws the boundary of the Cognac region. From 1936 the name is a protected appellation.

10 · Cellar-door stories

Myth or history?

Every cellar door has its stories, and ours are told over a glass. Some are history, some are legend, and some are a little of both. Make your call, then turn the card.

  1. No. 01

    “Crusaders watched Arab alchemists distil wine and thought they were capturing the Holy Spirit. That's why we call them spirits.”

    Legend

    There's no evidence for it. Alchemists called any volatile essence a spiritus, Latin for breath, so there was “spirit of salt” and “spirit of hartshorn” too. The sacred idea is real, though. Around 1351 the Franciscan friar John of Rupescissa called distilled wine the quintessence, a heavenly fifth element that could keep the body from decay.

    Source: Oxford English Dictionary; John of Rupescissa, De consideratione quintae essentiae, c. 1351

  2. No. 02

    “A sip of aqua vitae could bring a fallen crusader back to life.”

    Legend

    No record of battlefield resurrections survives. From the 1270s, physicians in Bologna sold aqua vitae, “water of life”, as medicine for almost everything, even to ward off old age. Mind you, a mouthful of raw spirit may well have woken a few who weren't quite dead.

    Source: Taddeo Alderotti, Bologna, 1270s; Arnaldus de Villa Nova, c. 1300

  3. No. 03

    “The word “alcohol” started out as eye make-up.”

    History

    Arabic al-kuḥl was kohl, the fine black powder used to line the eyes. The word came to mean the finest essence of anything, and in the 1500s Paracelsus and his followers spoke of the “alcohol of wine”: its spirit.

    Source: Oxford English Dictionary

  4. No. 04

    “Whisky, akvavit and eau-de-vie all have the same name.”

    History

    All of them mean “water of life”. French eau-de-vie, Scandinavian akvavit, Polish okowita and Gaelic uisge beatha (which English ears turned into whisky) all come from the Latin aqua vitae. Brandy is the odd one out: it's the Dutch brandewijn, “burnt wine”.

    Source: Oxford English Dictionary; etymonline

  5. No. 05

    “Sangiovese, Italy's great red grape, means “the blood of Jupiter” and was the wine of ancient Rome.”

    Half true

    The name is said to come from sanguis Jovis, “the blood of Jupiter”, but nobody has proved it. The grape first appears in writing at the end of the 1500s, and DNA shows it is a cross of two southern Italian varieties, so it can't be traced back to Rome.

    Source: Soderini, c. 1590; Vouillamoz et al., Vitis, 2007

  6. No. 06

    “The Dutch discovered that time in oak turns a rough spirit smooth.”

    The story goes

    The Dutch really did drive brandy-making on the Charente in the 1500s and 1600s, and gave it its name, brandewijn. But nobody wrote down who first noticed that the longer it sat in the cask, the better it got.

    Source: BNIC, the Cognac bureau (cognac.fr)

  7. No. 07

    “Whisky was born when the Hundred Years' War cut Britain off from French wine.”

    Myth

    Whisky is Scottish and Irish, not English. England held Bordeaux until 1453, so claret kept flowing, and Scotland, France's ally, drank plenty of it. The first records are Irish, in 1405, when a chieftain died of too much “water of life”, and Scottish, in 1494, when malt went to Friar John Cor “to make aqua vitae”. The islands simply distilled what they could grow: grain.

    Source: Annals of Connacht, 1405; Scottish Exchequer Rolls, 1494

  8. No. 08

    “Whisky is imitation brandy.”

    Cellar-door opinion

    We would say that. What's true is that Europe distilled wine first, from the 1100s, and grain spirits appear from about the 1400s. So whisky is brandy's younger cousin, not its copy. Many whiskies now rest in sherry casks, first used because sherry reached Britain in cask and the empties were cheap, and they bring back a little of the grape.

    Source: Scotch Whisky Association

  9. No. 09

    “St Bernard rescue dogs carried little barrels of brandy round their necks to revive travellers lost in the Alps.”

    Legend

    The barrel was painted in, not carried. In 1820 an eighteen-year-old Edwin Landseer, who had never been to the Alps, showed Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller, with a small cask on one dog's collar. Prints spread it across Europe. The monks of the Great St Bernard Hospice did breed rescue dogs, but never sent them out with brandy. Just as well: a tot won't warm a frozen traveller. It opens the blood vessels in the skin, so you feel warmer while your core loses heat faster.

    Source: Edwin Landseer, British Institution, 1820; Mental Floss

  10. No. 10

    “South Africa's first brandy was distilled on 19 May 1672.”

    History

    The Company's own journal records it. On 18 and 19 May 1672 a cook's mate from the ship De Pijl, who knew how to distil, made a trial from “the worst Cape wine” and its lees. Distilled twice, it gave three ankers, about 115 litres, of “very delicious brandy”. Double distillation, from the very first batch.

    Source: VOC Company Journal, 19 May 1672 (Leibbrandt, Précis of the Archives)

  11. No. 11

    “Brandy always gets weaker as it ages in the barrel.”

    Depends where

    In a cool, damp cellar more alcohol than water escapes, so it does. In the dry air of the Northern Cape more water escapes than alcohol, and our brandies end up stronger than they started.

    Source: Bezalel Estate

  12. No. 12

    “Once it's in the bottle, brandy stops ageing.”

    True

    Brandy ages only in wood. In the cask it breathes through the staves and draws colour, vanilla and tannin from the oak. Glass gives it nothing, so a 12-year-old brandy bottled ten years ago is still a 12-year-old brandy today. The age on the label is time in oak. Keep a sealed bottle upright, away from heat and light, and it will taste as it did the day it was bottled.

    Source: VinePair, “Why do wine and beer age in bottles, but spirits don't?”

11 · South Africa

Brandy in South Africa

The Cape has distilled its wine for almost as long as it has made it. It took two and a half centuries to turn rough “Cape smoke” into brandies judged among the finest in the world.

  1. 1672

    The first Cape brandy

    On 18 and 19 May a cook's mate from the Dutch ship De Pijl distils “the worst Cape wine” twice over. The Company's journal records three ankers of “very delicious brandy”: the first made at the Cape.

  2. 1800s

    Cape smoke

    Rough, fiery farm brandy earns the name “Cape smoke”. In 1821 the poet Thomas Pringle called it vile.

  3. 1910

    The Cognac method

    René Santhagens, a distiller trained in the Cognac tradition, makes double-distilled brandy at Oude Molen in Stellenbosch.

  4. 1918

    KWV

    The KWV co-operative is founded in Paarl. It becomes central to South African wine and brandy.

  5. 1924

    The standard

    The Wine and Spirits Act requires double distillation in copper pot stills and at least three years in oak. It is the foundation of South African potstill brandy.

  6. 1989

    Estates distil again

    The Liquor Products Act becomes law and the ban on estate distilling is lifted. Family cellars can make their own brandy again.

  7. 1996

    A first on the river

    At Dyasonsklip, the first private cellar and distillery on the banks of the Orange River makes its first official lot of potstill brandy, under the cellar's registered name, Dyasonsklip Wynkelder. It is 100% pot still from the start.

    Our story

  8. 2014

    100% pot still

    The law tightens. Potstill brandy must now be made entirely from pot-still spirit, with no wine spirit added.

  9. Today

    The world's best

    South African potstill brandies have repeatedly been named the world's best brandy at the IWSC and the International Spirits Challenge, ahead of Cognac.

Today South African brandy has two faces. Blended brandy, poured with Coke at a braai, is the volume. Potstill brandy, sipped neat or with a drop of water, is the country's finest spirit. Most of it is made in the Western Cape, along a Brandy Route that runs from Stellenbosch to Oudtshoorn. Ours is made far to the north, where the Orange River runs green through the Kalahari.

Close-up of a riveted copper pot still

Our copper still, mid-run.

12 · At Bezalel

Potstill brandy at Bezalel

Bezalel is a fourth-generation family estate on the Orange River, in the Green Kalahari. The founder's grandson planted the estate's first wine vineyards and built the first private cellar and distillery on the banks of the Orange River. Our first official lot of potstill brandy followed in 1996, under the cellar's original registered name, Dyasonsklip Wynkelder. It was 100% pot still from day one, eighteen years before the law required it.

The first commercial stills on the farm are two identical 680-litre copper stills with hand-hammered onion heads, sharing a single condenser. We call them the Twins, and they still run a large share of our distillations today. They began on wood fire, moved to gas, and now run on ceramic electric elements. Every brandy is double-distilled, and the founder's great-grandson has been master distiller since 2016.

Every bottle is an estate brandy, made from our own grapes and tracked by SAWIS from the press to the bottle, and every batch is a single-barrel release with its own batch and bottle numbers. The very first lot of each new age class becomes a Founder's Reserve: a one-off release in its own unique bottle, sold with a certificate of authenticity, and made for collectors.

Our stills, by the numbers

First official lot
1996100% pot still from the start
The Twins
2 × 680 LIdentical copper stills, hand-hammered onion heads, one shared condenser. Still in use
Base wine
50 / 50White Colombard and red Port cultivars, estate-grown
Distillation
TwiceEvery batch, heated by ceramic electric elements
Wine in every bottle
6.5–7.2 LOf base wine for each 750 ml of brandy, depending on its age
First casks
300 LMoving to smaller casks as the angel's share grows
Angel's share
Up to 35%Lost over long ageing in the dry Kalahari air
Every release
1 barrelSingle-barrel batches with batch and bottle numbers
Master distiller
Since 2016The fourth generation of the family

At Bezalel · The archive

Our first releases

Before it carried the Bezalel name, our brandy was labelled under the cellar's original registered name, Dyasonsklip Wynkelder.

The first lot of every new age class becomes a Founder's Reserve, released once and never repeated.

  1. 1996

    Dyasonsklip Kelder Potstill Brandy

    • Released 2001
    • 5 years in oak
    • 100% pot still

    Our first official lot of potstill brandy, made in 1996 under the cellar's original registered name and released in 2001 after five years in oak. It was 100% pot still from the start, eighteen years before the law required it.

  2. 2006

    Alambic Estate Brandy

    • Estate brandy
    • First under the Bezalel name

    The first potstill brandy to carry the Bezalel name, in a teardrop decanter sealed with wax.

  3. 2012

    Founder's Reserve XO

    • Distilled 2002
    • 10 years
    • Single barrel
    • One lot only

    Distilled in 2002 and released in 2012: the first lot of our XO age class, and the only one to carry the Founder's Reserve title. Every XO since has been aged 12 years.

  4. Unveiled December 2026

    December 2026

    Founder's Reserve XXO

    • 20 years
    • One lot only

    The first lot of our oldest age class, in its own bottle and sold with a certificate of authenticity. Later XXOs will be aged 18 years.

  1. Rooibos-wooded · Five Years Old

    Bezalel Rooibos Brandy

    Potstill brandy aged in French oak with rooibos wood added to the barrel. South Africa's first.

    Fynbos · Chocolate · Floral · Orange

    In oak
    5 years
    Cask
    French oak, with rooibos wood
    Alcohol
    38%
    Bottle
    500 ml
    Batch
    RBV12021
    Back soon
    View the bottle

  2. Raisin Brandy · Five Years Old

    Bezalel Hanepoot Brandy

    A liqueur-style brandy: 100% potstill brandy distilled from Hanepoot raisin wine, finished with raisins in the barrel.

    Spice · Apricot · Honeycomb · White Peach

    In oak
    5 years
    Cask
    French oak, with raisins
    Alcohol
    38%
    Bottle
    500 ml
    Batch
    HPV12021
    Back soon
    View the bottle

  3. Single-barrel · Small Limousin Oak

    Bezalel VSOP Potstill Brandy

    Our VSOP, bottled one barrel at a time.

    Nuts · Orange Peel · White Peach · Vanilla

    In oak
    6–8 years
    Cask
    French oak, single barrel
    Alcohol
    38%
    Bottle
    750 ml
    Batch
    45V52016
    R 720.00
    View the bottle

  4. Single barrel · Twelve years old

    Bezalel XO Potstill Brandy

    Twelve years in oak. Every XO since the Founder's Reserve XO of 2012, itself aged 10, has been aged 12.

    In oak
    12 years
    Cask
    French oak, single barrel
    Alcohol
    38%
    12 years old since 2014Ask at the Tasting Room

Taste it beside the still

Potstill brandy makes the most sense in the glass. Visit our Tasting Room on the N14 between Upington and Keimoes for a brandy tasting, or our brandy and chocolate pairing.

Plan a tasting

13 · Asked and answered

Potstill brandy questions

What is potstill brandy?

Potstill brandy is South African brandy made only from wine distilled in batches in a copper pot still, then aged for at least three years in oak casks of no more than 340 litres. By law it must be 100% pot-still spirit and bottled at 38% alcohol or more.

What does “potstill” mean?

It names the still. A pot still is a copper pot heated one batch at a time: the oldest way to distil, and one that keeps more of the fruit's character than a continuous column still. South African labels usually write it as one word, potstill. The law writes “pot still brandy”.

How is potstill brandy made?

White grapes, mainly Chenin Blanc and Colombard, are made into a dry, unsulphured wine of around 10–11% alcohol. It is distilled once to “low wines” of about 30%, then again. The distiller keeps only the heart, at about 70%. It is aged for at least three years in small oak casks and reduced with water to bottling strength.

What grapes are used to make potstill brandy?

Mostly white grapes picked early for high acid and low sugar, especially Chenin Blanc and Colombard. Bezalel is unusual: our base wine is half white Colombard and half red Port cultivars, Tinta Barocca, Touriga Francesa and Touriga Nacional, all grown on the estate.

How long is potstill brandy aged?

At least three years in oak casks of 340 litres or less, a year longer than the two-year minimum for a Cognac VS. Many potstill brandies are much older, and after eight years the spirit may move to casks of up to 1 000 litres. At Bezalel our VSOP spends six to eight years in a single barrel, our XO 12 years, and our XXO 18 years.

What is the difference between potstill brandy and blended brandy?

The share of pot-still spirit. Potstill brandy is 100% pot-distilled and aged for at least three years. Blended brandy needs only 30% potstill brandy. The rest can be unaged wine spirit, often from a column still, which makes it lighter and suited to mixing. For depth and complexity, potstill is the premium category.

What is an estate brandy?

A brandy made by a registered wine estate from grapes grown on that estate. The wine is registered with SAWIS on a green card and tracked from pressing, through the barrel, to bottling, so the brandy's origin can be proved. Every Bezalel brandy is an estate brandy.

What is a Founder's Reserve brandy at Bezalel?

The very first lot of each new age class. It's a one-off release in a unique bottle, sold with a certificate of authenticity and intended for collectors. There was only ever one lot of Founder's Reserve XO. The one lot of Founder's Reserve XXO, aged 20 years, is released in December 2026. Later releases of each age class drop the title.

Is potstill brandy the same as Cognac?

It is made in a similar way: distilled twice from wine in copper pot stills and aged in oak. But Cognac can only come from France's Cognac region, under French rules. South African potstill brandy follows South African law, which sets a longer three-year minimum and casks of no more than 340 litres.

Is brandy a type of whisky?

No. Brandy is distilled from wine, which is fermented grapes. Whisky is distilled from a fermented grain mash, such as malted barley. Both can be made in copper pot stills and aged in oak, but brandy's flavour starts in the fruit and whisky's in the grain.

What is Cape brandy?

Under South African law, a potstill brandy may be labelled “Cape brandy” if its grapes were grown, and it was distilled, in the Eastern, Northern or Western Cape. It marks the origin of the same 100% potstill, three-years-in-oak category.

Why is potstill brandy aged in such small barrels?

The law limits the casks to 340 litres for the first eight years. A smaller cask gives more wood for every litre of spirit, so vanilla, spice, tannin and colour come from the oak sooner, and the brandy breathes more through the staves.

What is the angel's share?

It's the brandy that evaporates through the oak while it ages. In a cool Cognac cellar it's about 2% a year, and there more alcohol than water escapes, so the brandy softens and weakens. In our dry Northern Cape cellar we lose up to 35% of the volume over long ageing, but more water than alcohol goes, so our brandies end up stronger than they started.

How should you drink potstill brandy?

Neat, at room temperature, in a tulip glass that gathers the aromas. Don't warm the glass or swirl it hard. Nose it gently from a few centimetres above the rim, and add a splash of clean still water to open it up. Sip slowly. At our Tasting Room we also pair it with chocolate.

When was brandy first made in South Africa?

On 18 and 19 May 1672, when a cook's mate from the Dutch ship De Pijl distilled Cape wine twice over and produced three ankers of “very delicious brandy”, as the Company's journal records. The quality standard followed in 1924, when the law required double distillation in copper pot stills and three years in oak.

14 · References

Sources

Written by Bezalel Wine & Brandy Estate from the estate's own records and the sources listed here, and reviewed by our master distiller, the fourth generation of the family. The legal facts follow South Africa's regulations as consolidated to March 2025. Last updated and reviewed 26 September 2026.

  1. Liquor Products Act 60 of 1989: Regulations, consolidated to March 2025Wine and Spirit BoardThe legal definitions of potstill, blended and vintage brandy: pot-still share, strength off the still, minimum ages, cask sizes and bottling strength.
  2. South Africa lowers minimum ABV level requirement for spiritsDrinks InternationalThe March 2025 change to a 40% minimum for blended brandy.
  3. Rules for SA premium brandy tightenedDRINKStuff South AfricaThe 2014 rule that potstill brandy must be 100% pot-still spirit.
  4. Discover South African brandySA Brandy FoundationSouth African brandy styles and how potstill brandy is made.
  5. The history of Cape potstill brandyCape BrandyThe Cape's brandy history, from Cape smoke to the 1924 standard, and the Cape brandy mark.
  6. Précis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope: Journal 1671–1674 & 1676H. C. V. Leibbrandt (ed.)The Company Journal entry for 18–19 May 1672, the first brandy distilled at the Cape.
  7. Cognac productionBNIC, the Cognac bureauCognac's double distillation, the Charentais still and its age categories.
  8. The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009UK legislationThe rules for Scotch malt whisky compared in the table.
  9. BrandyOnline Etymology DictionaryThe word's path from Dutch brandewijn, “burnt wine”.
  10. Estate recordsBezalel Wine & Brandy EstateOur stills, base wine, casks, angel's share, release dates and range.

Keep exploring

From the still to the estate