Learning about Brandy

The Summer months are the best time of the year to consider the cool and refreshing Pineau des Charentes - a drink that has found favour with all those who taste the magical richness.
There is no official record of how the drink first came about but the common belief is that it was first made in [...]

Continuing from our previous post about early Cognac history, some more historical dates in time about the golden nectar...

1835 Felix Courvoisier and Louis Gallois found Cognac Courvoisier
1849 Martell use their own labels on their bottles for the first time
1854 Cognacs depict 4 different zones of cognac. Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Premier Bois and Deuxième Bois
1856 [...]

Very few of us are aware that French Brandies have a long history, indeed they are some of the oldest distilled spirits. Here are a few facts for your next bar quiz..

1411 First Brandy distilled in Armagnac, mainly for farmers.
1494 Francois 1 is born in Cognac and later allows traders to use the Charente river [...]

Distillation is essentially a physical rather than a chemical action and is in effect the concentration of a wine mixture or fermented fruit or grain. It is a means of separating the constituents of a liquid mixture by partial vaporisation of the mixture and the separate recovery of the vapour and the alcoholic residue. In [...]