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After an extensive rebranding, Maison Brillet’s Belle de Brillet pear and cognac liqueur is now available across Ontario as well as in Quebec. Drawing on Maison Brillet’s nearly 200-year history in distillation, Belle de Brillet is made with the simple but ingenious addition of Williams pear eau-de-vie, Madagascan vanilla sugar, and water to cognac.
Hennessy (LVMH), Rémy Martin (Rémy Cointreau), Courvoisier (Beam Suntory), and Martell (Pernod Ricard). For years these were the cognac competitors of note, but more recently, Campari Group’s Bisquit & Dubouché has entered the ring.
After unveiling a whole new look for its three standard cognacs in early 2022, the iconic brand is back at it with the release of its new XO Royal, an ultrapremium cognac that honours Courvoisier’s long association with Europe’s royal courts.
In early March, NUVO attended Courvoisier Cognac’s We Found Joy event in New York. The star cocktail of the evening—The Gala—evoked quiet summer days in Courvoisier’s home of Jarnac, France. Courvoisier has provided the recipe for The Gala so NUVO readers can enjoy a bit of Jarnac via New York at home.
Cognac is about distinction. Here are some classifications and important facts alongside some of the best bottles out there.
Now the legendary French brand Louis XIII Cognac by Rémy Martin has announced a partnership with ARK Architects to display decanters of its exquisite Cognac in specially designed cellars of its villas.
Baptiste Loiseau was appointed cellar master at the age of 34—making him the youngest-ever—and trained under Pierrette Trichet, the first woman to ever hold the cellar master position at a major cognac house.
It is difficult to believe that Rémy Martin’s Louis XIII cognac could be made more exclusive, but it has been—and Sotheby’s will auction it this fall.
For hundreds of years, cognac was anything but a hip drink. It was always drunk straight, sometimes warmed. It was the digestif of choice for older men, who nursed snifters of the amber liquid and slumbered in massive leather armchairs after a heavy meal. So today, drinking a cognac cocktail in a tall glass with a twist of lemon seems almost heretical.
