Spirit
Cognac
Cognac is the celebrated French grape brandy of the Charente — twice-distilled in copper pot stills from a thin, tart white wine and aged for years in Limousin oak, opulent and silky with notes of dried apricot, raisin, vanilla, honey and a faint floral lift, graded VS, VSOP and XO by the time it has spent in cask and sipped from a balloon snifter as the most prestigious of after-dinner digestifs.
BalancedSpirit-forward
At a glance
Signature
Grape & Vanilla
Honey
Strength
Spirit-forward
by taste profile
Faintly sweet to dry, silky and warming, Cognac leads with grape and raisined dried fruit — apricot, fig and candied orange — over honey, vanilla and toffee from the oak, lifted by a delicate floral, almost violet top note and underpinned by a balsamic, woody rancio depth that deepens with age. The texture is light and spirituous with a rounded alcohol warmth at around forty percent, and the finish is long, mellow and elegantly oaky, growing softer and more complex in older XO bottlings.
Taste balance
BitternessMedium
SmoothBitter
StrengthStrong
LightStrong