Stocking the Home Bar, Part 3 - Cognac

OK, so I don't have time this morning to tackle all my favorites, so I'll just give you France's finest spirit, Cognac, which is distilled from grapes and aged in oak barrels. I won't go into the heady details of classifications and aging as that is well covered in the Wikipedia entry.

Cognac is brandy, but brandy is not necessarily cognac. If the spirit is not made in the Cognac region of France, it's brandy, just as sparkling wine made outside of Champagne is... sparkling wine. Other regions might have different names for their brandies, notably Armagnac, which is also in France, not to mention the large number of fruit brandies like Calvados and Palinka. In any case, be prepared to sacrifice a fair percentage of your bar budget here (but save a bunch for Scotch and bourbon, too).

Let's go through what you probably already know: Rémy Martin, Hennessy, Courvoisier, Martell. While all these companies produce a fine product and at least one stellar, super-aged tête-de-cuvée, there are a number of smaller producers who deserve your support, too.

Hine, somewhat known for producing vintage (year of production is marked on label) cognacs, is lovely stuff. The Rare VSOP is wonderful, all candied fruits and baking spices and a whiff of citrus.

Delamain also makes unique cognacs, choosing to use their own age terms rather than the accepted VS, VSOP, XO.

And if you think good brandies are limited to France, you would be missing out on some of the finest distilled spirits in the United States. I speak, of course, of Germain-Robin.

The most important thing for you to know about Germain-Robin (other than the fact that they make some of the best brandy in the world): they make single-varietal brandies. In and of itself, this means nothing.

The blender's art is a crucial part of making a successful brandy or cognac. Blending is the fount from which house styles emerge. Blending is the act of taking all the disparate parts and melding them into something better. Blending, while it might be overlooked these days, is a wonderful and necessary thing.

But there's something revelatory about tasting the product of a single barrel, made from a single grape varietal in a single harvest. It's the same reason wine lovers constantly search for true expressions of terroir from single vineyards. It's different. It's quirky and idiosyncratic. It's a snapshot of one place at one time, painted over the canvas of your tongue.

Time for a drink.