One of the difficulties we always find when deciding upon the flavour of a particular cognac is the time of the day we did the tasting. The problem being that our taste buds have greater efficiency in the mornings than in the afternoon or evenings. Not only that but our perception of what we taste can also vary at different times of the day, so a cognac that tastes of roasted walnuts in the morning may taste of green walnuts in the afternoon or vice versa.

The sensation of taste is closely related to that of smell and taste is detected by what are known as taste buds (circular bumps), on the tongue. They range from quite small on the front of the tongue to larger ones at the back, technically known as “papillae”. Each papilla has a gustatory hair that reaches the outside of the tongue through an opening called a taste pore. Once a stimulus activates the gustatory impulse, receptor cells pass an electrical impulse to the gustatory area of the cortex. The brain interprets the sensations of taste.

A tongue map was developed in 1901 by a German scientist, D P Hanig, who discovered that taste preceptors have varying degrees of sensitivity and that some areas can detect taste better than others. Whilst the tongue detects the taste, other areas of the mouth can influence flavour. Pressure of the tongue on the roof of the mouth can prevent the gustatory hairs from sensing the flavours but the uneven shape of the roof tends to limit this effect. People with top dentures can often detect different flavours, since the denture has a smooth area that compresses that area of the mouth, making it easier for the gustatory hairs to be crushed and preventing the brain from detecting the flavour.

Look on the Brandyclassics website for tasting notes – for nearly every bottle we sell you’ll find a description of the flavours you can find in the brandy. Whether it’s cognac, armagnac, calvados or eaux de vie,  you’ll find a tremendous selection of artisan brandies for you to enjoy.

Many people often ask us to explain the right way to taste brandies so we thought we would make a new year’s resolution to encourage a wider understanding of cognac appreciation.

1. Firstly the glass. Big brandy balloons allow too big a surface area of the brandy exposed to the air. The professional glass is a small tulip shaped glass, but a small brandy balloon will be fine.
2. The cognac should be rolled around the sides of the glass to allow it to form tears down the side. Never swirl the spirit as this will release too much alcohol from the liquid, which will sit over the surface of the cognac and blind the aroma.
3. Half of the enjoyment of the cognac is in its aroma, it is therefore important to have as much surface area to smell as possible. Allow the cognac to rest for a few seconds before gently bringing the glass to the nose, trying if possible to recognise some of the many aromas.
4. Don’t rush it! Many of those wonderful smells will be recognisable in the taste, so take your time before the big event when you taste it.
5. Don’t sip it! Take a reasonable quantity into the mouth and chew it – key taste areas are the front and back of the tongue and the roof of your mouth, so make sure they are immersed to discover the full complexity.
6. Hold it in your mouth for a while. You will be surprised at what you find…

In addition to our exclusive range of Hermitage cognacs, Brandyclassics have a superior range of cognacs, armagnacs and calvadoses from a wide selection of Houses. Every brandy has a unique flavour, and we encourage our customers to read the additional product information on our website. The Flavour section will provide hints as to the flavours you can detect as you drink from one of our bottles…

During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when Brandyclassics were developing a strategy for selling cognacs, the key question customers would ask was “Can we have a vintage cognac”.

Research has established that more than 93% of customers would prefer to know how old the cognacs they are buying are, rather than rely on a generic description which they do not understand. Brandyclassics have understood customers’ reluctance to buy cognacs which lack individuality for many years.

The famous cognac houses spend millions of pounds advertising their homogenous, characterless generic VS, VSOP and XO cognacs, resting on the laurels of past glories. This has given them licence to reduce the quality of the cognacs they sell, and they have progressively used younger and younger cognacs blended from thousands of producers. This results in cognacs with less natural flavour from the barrels and more aggressive tones on the palate.

Vintages, on the other hand, have to remain in the barrel gently maturing until their natural balance provides the optimum balance and flavour. Hermitage Cognacs are designed to be aged naturally; the stills in which they are made are specifically shaped so as to collect the spirits before they are able to drip back into the boiler and be re-distilled or neutralised. The barrels are kept in damp cellars to prevent too much of the brandy escaping from the barrels, allowing it to have maximum contact with the wood. Only the very finest are then selected and sold under our exclusive Hermitage cognac label. When you see our logo on the bottles, you know it is very special and carries an age statement for your assurance of the very finest purity and quality. Hermitage cognacs are not blended, they are Single Estate Cognacs.

In real terms nobody really knows when cognacs were first put into bottles. The first recorded cognacs existed around 1540, but we only know of them being sold in barrels.

About 200 years later, cognacs were being sold from barrels and transferred into small convenient sized hand blown bottles of around 40-50cl. At around this time, it was discovered that some cognacs were best removed from the barrel and stored in glass bottles, which prevented them from changing their individual characteristics. To prevent any deterioration in the cognac when it was stored in glass, it was necessary for the bottle to be sealed with a cork and waxed over the top to prevent the ingress of air. To minimise the number of bottles that needed sealing, large bottles were made which would hold sometimes as much as 3-4 litres. Cognacs stored in these large bottles were often transferred to smaller bottles, which could be easily carried around before they were sold,

By around 1800, glass producers were making hand blown bottles by the thousands. Although there were standard sizes, no two bottles were the same and many had big bell bottoms, which when the hot glass was pressed to the table often meant that the bottle would have a distinctive lean to the side. The bottles of this period had grown to around 90cl and the need for standardisation created the imperial measure for liquids. Most of the cognac houses were owned by English or Irish families, so this was easier for the buyers of the brandies to understand.

Imperial brandy measures were finally changed in 1956, when metric units were introduced to standardise the bottle and to enable easier price comparison of the contents. Today cognac bottles come in sizes of 35cl, 50cl, 70cl, 75cl (America),100cl & 150cl.