Ivory uses traditional copper alambic pot stills. The stills, along with the selection of grapes and aging, are key to producing fine brandy. Brandy is a spirit distilled from wine naturally fermented from fruit, notably grapes, and aged for at least two years in toasted wood barrels so it develops the characteristic brown color. The process of making brandy is straightforward but tricky. It takes years of experience to tame the stills.

Ivory starts by making wine; for fine brandy, they use relatively unripe grapes picked at less than 19 percent sugar, which makes a wine with less than 10 percent alcohol but retains desirable flavors. Making brandy from fully ripe grapes results in higher yield, but flat flavors.

Ivory uses grapes for their brandies that row well in the cool region. Once the wine is produced, it is processed in small batches to extract the alcohol and flavors. A small quantity of wine is placed in the "pot," then carefully heated so the alcohol and primary aromas boil off. They are condensed in a worm cooled with water in a manner similar to that depicted for moonshine stills. This liquid, called broullis, contains about 30 percent alcohol. The original wine with its tannins, acids and so forth is discarded, then the broullis is distilled again, producing clear "eau de vie" (water of life) at 140 proof (70 percent alcohol).

The clear eau de vie is placed in new barrels made of expensive oak. They’re traditionally large 92-gallon barrels (wine and whiskey barrels are 50-60 gallons) that have been "toasted" inside, not charred as for bourbon or whiskey. After a period in new oak, the eau de vie is transferred to increasingly older oak, becoming darker in color and more mellow as it picks up caramel and vanilla flavors from the wood. Ivory ages the brandy a minimum of four years; it improves with age as long as it’s in oak barrels, but unlike wine, no longer able to bloom once bottled. It takes 10 gallons of wine to produce one gallon of fine brandy, part of the reason for its high cost — as is the long aging in expensive wood barrels.