Monthly Archives: November 2011

At the end of our series on the Good and Great Cognac houses, we thought it appropriate to do a bit of chest beating for our very own Hermitage Cognacs. They are not the products of a single distiller, but from family distilleries and cellars with proven production and ageing procedures.
The concept of Hermitage Pure [...]

The Ladies Drink Cognac too...
In a recent disclosure, the drinks firm Beam have claimed that it has taken them 216 years of marketing to realise that ladies drink spirits as well as men. Beams marketing chief asked his team to establish what they were missing out on and introduced a range of spirit based drinks [...]

Croizet 1858 sells at Auction for US$156,000
Last month, the highest known price for a bottle of Croizet Vintage 1858 Cognac was paid by a Chinese client. The Cognac is one of many the house has in its cellars and the firm is known for its collection of these old cognacs, many of which were bottled [...]

As a bit of interesting deviation from the cognacs and armagnacs we normally feature here, we thought it might be worthwhile tasting the macerated fruit eau de vie often used with wine, champagne or in cooking when a strong blackcurrant flavour is desired.
The Nusbaumer Supreme de Cassis is without doubt one of the very finest [...]

Grappa was originally a peasant drink, designed to provide comfort and strength to the maker - usually a poor peasant in the mountains of northern Italy. Grappa was more than just a drink - it was a tradition, a disinfectant, a medicine, allegedly sovereign against complaints as diverse as depression in old age, toothache, constipation [...]

Legally the Cognaçais may use a number of grape varieties, although the choice is largely theoretical. The Ugni Blanc or to give it it’s proper name, the St Emillion des Charentes, accounts for about 95% of the total area. The rest is almost totally Colombard and Folle Blanch. This concentration is largely attributable to phylloxera [...]

Finding a good 1900 these days is becoming a real trial and we have tasted many that are way off the mark in both style and balance. So we were over the moon when we found one we liked from a cellar in Bouteville between Segonzac and Chateauneuf in Grande Champagne.
Moreover we have discovered that [...]

The firm  Castarède is naturally proud of being the oldest business in Armagnac. They were founded in 1832 by Jules Nismes at the suggestion of a young subprefect, who later became famous as the Baron Haussmann who replanned Paris for the Emperor Napoleon III. The firm was sited at the furthest point  to which the River [...]

Bouteville. Home of Hermitage 1900 Grande Champagne
As most of our customers are aware, Hermitage Cognacs come with age statements and it can be difficult sometimes to find enough to supply the market needs. Clearly younger cognacs are easier to find than older ones, but the need for quality means that we have to reject many [...]