“Brandy” Comes from “Burned Wine,” and Other (Judeo-)Linguistic Notes about Liquor

Mosaic reader Shelly Rosen writes:

“My zeyde always drank a schnaps before dinner and said he was drinking a ‘brunfin,’ or maybe a ‘brunfun.’ Do you think there is any connection between this word and the whiskey-making Bronfman family of Canada? And what is the word’s correct form?”

The correct form of the Yiddish word, which means “liquor,” is bronfn or bronfen, with the first vowel pronounced like the “o” in “for” and the second like the “o” in “reason,” and while it seems logical that the Bronfmans—the erstwhile owners of the Seagram Company, once the world’s biggest liquor manufacturer—should owe their family name to it, this is far from certain. But I’ll get back to that.