Courvoisier, the Brandy of Napoleon.

As I mention on the last blog, I grew up drinking Hennessey, and I have drank Remy Martin many times, however, for me, the best cognac is Courvoisier, so of course I went for a tour of their place.

Courvoisier is also situated on the river La Charente in the town of Jarnac. And what a nice place it was, well decorated, very classy and the people were very nice.

The tour was very informative and well presented. We learned about how Courvoisier was founded in 1809 after the French Revolution in the outskirts of Paris on the river Seine, where by being outside of the city, they did not have to pay taxes.

In 1811 Napoleon visited the distillery and he liked the cognac so much, that he ordered it by big quantities so his troops could have a drink every morning and start the day in a good note.

When Napoleon was exile to St Helena in 1815, he was allowed one luxury item, and he choose Courvoisier and that was when it gained the name of “The Brandy of Napoleon”.

As the demand for Courvoisier kept on growing, on 1828 they moved the headquarters to Jarnac in the region of Cognac, where still to this day.

Courvoisier was the drink at the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower and at the World Fair in 1889, and the only cognac to have ever earned the highest honor award :‘Prestige de la France’ .

Charles Dickens was famous not only for his writings but also for his punches and when he passed away they found in his home, over 200 bottles of Courvoisier among over 2000 bottles of other liquors and spirits.

We walked through the museum and then we saw a room with barrels where they show us how they keep the cognac to age.

I was a little disappointed on the sense that what we toured was not the actual distillery; it was a place set up to look like it just for the tours.

Nevertheless, it was interesting.

You saw on the last post I had a picture of a Hennessy cognac that was priced at $ 3227.50, well, that was nothing compare to some of the prices at Courvoisier.

The most expensive one was 6,900 € = $ 9573.06, of course the decanters were made by Baccarat and Lalique, so you are paying for that too. Anyway, these vintages cognac were distilled before 1930 with some of them being even older than that. However I will never be able to taste one of them either. Oh well….