For more than a year we have been discussing the potential trade opportunities in Asia. We were unfortunate last year as we had planned to enter trade through the food and wine exhibition in Singapore. Despite having set up all the display work for the show, we were scuppered at the last moment by a [...]

We have recently returned from Hong Kong where we have been working closely with UKTI in setting up distribution of Hermitage Pure Vintage Cognacs. Our visit included meetings with four specialist luxury drinks distributors who have now tasted and explored the possibilities of selling Hermitage cognacs to their customers. They are all involved with sales [...]

We are proud to announce a rare and very special limited edition cognac, a 70 year old Grande Champagne cognac, will be available to the cognac connoisseur very shortly!
During a recent visit to the Charente when we were discussing old cognacs with a producer, we came across a very rare Grande Champagne cognac hiding in [...]

One of the difficulties we always find when deciding upon the flavour of a particular cognac is the time of the day we did the tasting. The problem being that our taste buds have greater efficiency in the mornings than in the afternoon or evenings. Not only that but our perception of what we taste can [...]

Many people often ask us to explain the right way to taste brandies so we thought we would make a new year’s resolution to encourage a wider understanding of cognac appreciation.

Firstly the glass. Big brandy balloons allow too big a surface area of the brandy exposed to the air. The professional glass is a small [...]

At last, a major cognac house has recognised the need for numbers on bottles! Courvoisier have introduced age statements with their 12 and 21 year old cognacs.
Here at Brandyclassics we have campaigned for more than a decade the need for customers to benefit from knowing the age of the cognacs they buy. We recognised that customers [...]

Martell is the oldest of Cognacs big four firms. It was started in 1715 when Jean Martell arrived in Cognac from his native Jersey, which was in those days a centre for smuggling brandy into Britain. He married (in succession), the daughters of two Cognac merchants. The second, Rachel Lallemand, was descended from one of [...]

During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when Brandyclassics were developing a strategy for selling cognacs, the key question customers would ask was “Can we have a vintage cognac”.
Research has established that more than 93% of customers would prefer to know how old the cognacs they are buying are, rather than rely on a generic [...]

The Larsen brand of is probably known in every cognac drinking country for their Viking Ship logo. The firm was established in 1926 by Jens Reidar Larsen who came from Tromso, north of the arctic circle in Norway. The firm are quick to point out that the term Viking refers to a state of mind rather [...]

Hine is one of the most venerable and deservedly respected names in Cognac. It was founded by an immigrant from Dorset, Thomas Hine, who settled in Jarnac in 1791 and married into the Delamain family and became a partner.
The Hine company was founded in 1817 by Thomas who died aged 47. He was succeeded by [...]