Alcademics.com

A Visit to the House of Remy Martin Cognac

In France recently, I had a tour and dinner at the house of Remy Martin in Cognac. They don't allow photography in the cellar, so this post is a little light on the pictures. (Suck it up and read.)

We entered the building at night so it's hard to recall exactly what the house complex looks like, but if memory serves me right the buildings (almost a campus) was a combination of old and new architecture, the traditional tan stone buildings integrated with new glass-heavy buildings. We did a walk through of the distilling demonstration and aging cellars, then headed upstairs for a meal.  

Remy's products are made from grapes grown in either the Grande Champagne or Petite Champagne regions. The VS product is 100% Petite Champagne,the higher end products are 100% Grande Champagne, and everything in the middle is a blend of the two regions. (The above picture is the blending room, by the way.)

A blend of at least 51% Grande Champagne and the rest Petite Champagne may be labeled as "Fine Champagne" on the bottle, and most of Remy's bottles are. As can be seen on the descriptions of the range here, each successive bottling labeled as Fine Champagne has a higher percentage of Grand Champagne than the last.

The real surprise of the night was the pre-dinner lounge with passed fish appetizers and the new Remy Ice Boxx. When the cognac (We had the VSOP- not sure if the VS is standard) was chilled to -18C in these machines it was surprisingly flavorful and nutty and not at all what I expected.

Cognac as the new Jager? I can't wait to see how this turns out.

New Books from Mixellany

The folks at Mixellany (Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller) have released two books:

A French book of American and British Cocktails

Mixellany's Annotated BARIANA: A Practical Compendium of All American and British Drinks by Louis Fouquet, Translated from the Original 1896 French Edition and Annotated by Charles Vexenat

Originally published in 1896, Bariana: Recueil pratique de toutes boissons Americaines et Anglaises by Louis Fouquet is regarded as the second French cocktail book ever published. But there is no question that Bariana is the first heralded French cocktail book: Unveiled in the 1898 edition of the popular Almanach Hachette encyclopaedia, a handful of Fouquet's recipes were published along with the comment that "Thanks to Mr. Louis Fouquet, the skiilful barman from the Criterion (121 r. St-Lazare) American and English beverages can now be prepared by everyone as easily as combining anisette and water."

This book is released October 3rd.

An international history of booze

Spirituous Journey: A History of Drink, Book One, by Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller

This initial volume opens with the surprising discovery that ancient Arabic term "al kol" had two appropriate definitions long before Europeans learnt to distill alcohol: "1: a genie or spirit that takes on varied shapes (a supernatural creature in Arab mythology). 2: Any drug or substance that takes away the mind or covers it." From there, the authors trace the birth of spirits from China, to India, to Persia, through Europe and on to the New World.

What did people do with these potent potables long before the Cocktail was ever heard of? Miller and Brown explore the centuries-old origins of classic mixed drinks. Spirits and the drinks made with them have close ties to some of civilisation's landmark periods including the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mongol, and Persian Empires as well as major historical events including the Crusades, Little Ice Age, The Black Death, the American Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution.

You can purchase the books at the Mixellany shop here or on Amazon.com here

Cognac Tesseron Visit

While in France recently I visited the cognac house of Tesseron. This brand is notable for having probably the second largest collection of old cognacs in demijohns in all of Cognac. 

Cognac can only age for so long in barrel before the spirit becomes flabby and loses its aromatic qualities. For cognac made from grapes grown in the Grande Champagne (the growing area producing grapes that age the longest), most cognac caps out at no more than 75 years in wood, though there are exceptions. After that point, the spirit is transferred to glass demijohns- round bottles about the size of a water cooler refill. These are stored in what is called the Paradis cellar at each house, and a visit to the paradis is a part of every cognac house tour.

The cellars at Tesseron date back to the 13th century and were once part of a crypt of the local church. We visited two cellars and saw rows and rows of cognacs dating to the 1860's- and were lucky enough to be able to sample some. This time is just as Phylloxera came to the region, destroying nearly all the vines in Cognac. These old grape vines were of a different variety than the Ugni Blanc planted today, so being able to taste them is quite special.  

Like many brands, Tesseron has a long history of selling its unaged and aged eau de vie to the big houses, but then decided to sell some under its own name. The brand Tesseron was launched in 2003 and releases only products XO and above in age- no VS or VSOP. 

Tesseron has several releases that would be vintage-dated but this is not legal in cognac unless the dates can be absolutely proven. (More on this in a future post.) Brands like Tesseron try to get around this by not labeling the bottles but letting people know what's in it. They label their bottles "Lot 90" "Lot 76" and so on, to imply the date of the cognac, but I did not verify with the brand that everything in the bottle comes from the year of the "lot" on the label and older.

Tesseron also sells cognac in 1.75 Liter bottles, which is fun. They have both the "lot" line and these sexy round "Extreme" line bottles shaped like a round demijohn.  I think the black one would look particularly good in my apartment. (It's the holiday season coming up, I'm just sayin'.)

Sponsored Post: WhiskyFest Discounts

September 30th is the last day for the earlybird discount on WhiskyFest San Francisco, which takes place on October 16th. Still too early to commit? I found a couple other ways to get a discount. I received emails from both Friends of Laphroaig and Classic Malts (Diageo's single malt portfolio) offering ten bucks off a ticket with a special coupon code. Maybe if you sign up now they'll still send you that email...

Additionally, you may consider signing up for the first hour of tasting, the VIP hour. During that hour you not only get to sample the whisky with less of a crowd, there are special whiskies poured only during that hour, such as Ardbeg Supernova, Glenfarclas 1968, and Highland Park 30 year old. Check out the list of all whiskies and the extra ones during VIP hour here. VIP tickets cost $40 more than regular tickets.

DVD Review: Beer Wars

I received a copy of the new documentary Beer Wars, released this week. I found it to be both interesting and annoying.

The story is about the big brewers versus small ones and how hard it is in the current system to launch a small brand. It was interesting to learn how both shelf space and distribution are controlled by major brands, how they'll release "category killer" products just to knock out the competition from upstarts, and how much money is spent lobbying congress.

The big flaw with the film in my opinion is that director/writer/producer Anat Baron chose to focus on two upstart brands to follow as they faced challenges. One was DogFish Head Craft Brewery from Delaware- what you'd think of as a small brewer you'd want to succeed. The other is New Century Brewing Co, who are releasing a caffeinated beer. It's hard to feel bad for this brand's founder as she faces challenges and tries to sell out to the bigger companies when they run out of money.

There is also a theme about the American Dream running through the film as the small guys try to compete, countered by Nazi-sounding war marching music when they'd show footage of the large brands. Tacky.

Director Baron doesn't seem to care about the difference between craft products that consumers may want to succeed and small entrepreneurs trying to make a fast buck, but then again she was once the General Manager of Mike's Hard Lemonade, which she calls a beer.

So yes, this DVD has many interesting facts about the beer industry in America and I think is definitely worth watching. I just found it hard in the end to sympathize with Baron about the big bad beer brands when I didn't care if half the featured small ones failed.  

Cognac Visit: Bache Gabrielsen

While in the Cognac region of France, I stopped in to cognac house Bache Gabrielsen for a visit. I was greeted by fourth-generation family member Herve Bache-Gabrielsen and taken to their tasting room around a wooden table in the upstairs office.

Bache Gabrielsen is located on a small, nondescript street in Cognac. There are few signs to identify that the street holds buildings for blending, aging, bottling, and other storage. The company owns other warehouses as well (it's not safe or legal to hold too much cognac within the city- fire would be a very bad thing) but the white buildings on a narrow side street give no clue as to their rather large storage capacity indoors. 

The brand is Norwegian though they've been in Cognac for 100 years, and still their largest markets are Norway and other Scandinavian countries. It turns out that Norway consumes the most cognac per person in the world. Who knew?  

Herve also said that there is currently a glut of sorts of aging barrels due to a past overproduction of cognac and a previous economic collapse. Thus there is a lot of 20+ year old cognac sitting around in barrels that producers are using in their XO products. Eventually though this glut will dry up and he predicts it may be hard for some producers to maintain a consistent flavor profile in their products when there is less older eau de vie around to go into them.

Smaller brands like Bache Gabrielsen have both problems and opportunities in the market. They can release small batch products without the overhead and marketing support of larger brands, but on the other hand they are selling so much less it may be hard to educate consumers on what they're drinking.

Bache Gabrielsen has two cognac lines that they call Classic and Pure and Rustic. The Classic line, like most all cognacs, has caramel added for color consistency and sugar to soften the spirit, but the Pure and Rustic line (that is called "Natur and Eleganse" in the US) has neither. I found it definitely had a stronger alcohol attack on the tongue and was a more 'raw' tasting spirit, but not in a bad way- more like rye whiskey as opposed to bourbon. (I wonder if it might mix better in cocktails than most cognac.) I thought the XO was a particularly good balance between alcohol sharpness and wood softness.

All in all, it was great to see this small house hidden on a narrow street within the city limits, doing something new in old Cognac.

Tequila and Fernet, Together at Last

I haven't had the Manana Despues yet, but I fully support it in theory. It's a version of the Fernet Branca Cocktail from the Savoy Cocktail Book, using blanco tequila instead of gin.

Jay from Oh Gosh! has the recipe video with Tiffany Short of The Gibson here. Yes she pronounces Fernet incorrectly, but to be fair I wasn't sure we were saying it right in San Francisco until Count Branca came to town and confirmed it.

A Trove of Tasty Cachaca Recipes

Cuca Fresca cachaca (Brazilian rum from raw fermented sugarcane instead of molasses) is having a cocktail contest for which they want you to vote for your favorite drink. There are too many tasty looking ones from which to choose. Check them out here.

Chicago's Todd Appel has a carrot juice drink, and I'm all about carrot drinks- in theory anyway.

There is also a strawberry shrub on the list- and that means Vinegarwatch Continues!