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Tag: Christmas brandy

Christmas Gift Guides For Him & For Her

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It is that time of year when we are all looking for Christmas gift ideas. What to buy the person who has everything? Or the person you really want to treat? Well, to help a little with your festive shopping we have put together some Gift Guides for Him & Her. We have lots of wonderful, special products on our website but here are a few of our favourites:

For Him

Gift Guide

Toutain Reserve 3 Year Old Calvados Distilled, naturally fermented ciders are aged in French oak casks to produce a calvados with a strong palate and a lingering flavour of cooked apples. £39.30

Hermitage 10 Year Old Grande Champagne Cognac. Flavours of spice and coffee, with pineapple in the background, are characteristic of cognacs from the top cru. Excellent value for one with such a good pedigree. £64.10

Mosgaard Organic Single Malt Pedro Ximenez Cask Whisky. Double matured, first in new French oak casks and then finished in old Pedro Ximenez sherry casks, adding sweetness and a rich, mahogany colour. £67.20

Delord 25 Year Old Bas Armagnac. Aromas of vanilla and cinnamon lead to flavours of coffee, cocoa and bitter oranges and a long finish with notes of walnut and almond. £83.05

Hermitage 25 Year Old Grande Champagne Cognac. This is a particularly complex cognac that has been aged for 25 years in Limousin oak barrels. It has a multitude of aromas and flavours including spices and roasted nuts. £135.60

For Her

Dupont Dream Calvados Liqueur. Calvados cream liqueur with clean appley flavour, delicious and much more appealing than the popularly branded whisky cream liqueurs. £31.80

Mosgaard Organic Tangerine Gin. Sweet and floral organic tangerine gin made from fresh tangerines. The citrus package, gives it a more aromatic expression and is balanced with lime. £39.60

Chateau de Bordeneuve La Grande Josiane, Orange Armagnac Liqueur. A subtle alliance between the fullness and strength of Bas Armagnac and the softness and perfume of bitter oranges meticulously selected for their maturity.  £43.80

Nusbaumer 20 Year Old Reserve Poire William Eau de Vie (Pear). This pear brandy is made from small, red Williams pears that grow on hillsides with excellent sun exposure. Aged for 20 years, it is one of the best we have tasted. £84.00

Dupont Pomme Captive Pays d’Auge Calvados. This apple, macerating in calvados, is created in the spring when a carafe is suspended from the branch of the apple tree as soon as the first little apple appears; it then continues to grow inside. £127.80

Christmas Gifts for Under £200

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For those who would like to spend just a little bit more, here are our suggestions for 5 Christmas Gifts that can be purchased for under £200.  Enjoy the read!

Under £200Hermitage Provenance 25 Grande Champagne Cognac £126.72  Cognacs from the Grande Champagne age very slowly producing flavours such as roasted nuts, rich fruits and citrus. This cognac’s wonderfully complex flavours are a result of having been kept in oak barrels, in damp cellars, for over 25 years.

Dupont 20 Year Old Pays d’Age Calvados £147.24  This wonderful calvados is made from 80% bittersweet apples and 20% acidic apples and has been aged for over 20 years in a wooden vat and toasted oak barrels.  Well balanced with long and intense flavours of fruit and toasted hazelnuts.

Hermitage 30 Year Old Grande Champagne Cognac  £163.86  Thirty years of oak ageing ensures this cognac has far more intense flavour and complexity than the big commercial blends.  It has a rich nutty, spice and coffee flavour with mature pineapple background.

Chateau du Breuil 20 Year Old Pays d’Age Calvados  £164.94  A taste of sweet baked apples with an overindulgent richness. There are 5 apple varieties with only 20% being picked from the tree, the remainder are fallen apples with higher sugar content.

Castarede 1972 Bas Armagnac  £164.94  All of Castarède’s armagnacs come from the top cru, Bas Armagnac, which produces light, fruity, delicate and highly reputed eaux de vie, from which the armagnacs are distilled.  Elegant and refined with flavours of dried fruits, bread pudding, toffee and sweet spices.

Christmas Gifts For Under £100

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In our second gift guide, designed to make choosing those precious Christmas gifts just a little bit easier, we have selected 5 of our favourites, all of which are priced at under £100:

Under £100Montanaro Grappa Barolo Cannubi    £72.30  A unique grappa distilled from the grape marcs of Nebbiolo da Barolo from the famous Cannubi cru. One of Montanaro’s finest it has an unmistakable intensity on the nose and cleanliness and elegance in the mouth; soft, velvety, sweet and delicate flavours with notes of dried fruit and jam. Aged in Slavonian oak barrels for 4-5 years, it has a golden yellow colour typical of wood-aged distillates.

Hermitage 2010 Grande Champagne Cognac   £76.14   Another wonderful vintage from the Chez Richon stills, this cognac is still in cask and maturing all the time. Traditional flavours of mocha and toffee are accompanied by butterscotch and sweet spices to delight your palate. As our award-winning 2005 vintage has run out, we are pleased to have found this 2010 as a worthy replacement.

Toutain Hors d’Age 15 Year Old Calvados   £77.22    There are 35 apple varieties allowable for the production of calvados and Toutain grow all their own in their orchards near Beuzeville, Normandy. This Hors d’Age calvados has been aged in oak for 15 years to produce a complex and fine calvados suitable for drinking during or after a meal.

Mosgaard Organic Single Malt Palo Cortado Cask Whisky   £84.12  Finished in casks built from American white oak, which had been medium toasted, and put into stock with Palo Cortado sherry for 1.5 years.  (Palo Cortado is a sherry with the nose of Amontillado and the body from Oloroso).  It has been bottled at a strength of 53% which balances the spicy malt and green citrus notes.

Delord 1992 Bas Armagnac   £88.26   An armagnac with character from Delord. It was distilled in 1992 and aged in wooden barrels until its recent bottling. It is contact with the wood that has helped give its beautiful colour of old gold with copper highlights.  

Christmas Gifts For Under £50

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We have a wealth of Christmas present ideas to suit all budgets but to make choosing a little easier, we have selected 5 of our favourites, all of which are priced at under £50:

Under £50Montanaro Vermouth Extra Dry Di Torino    £33.48    Straw-yellow coloured, with light amber shadows, due to the addition of 5% of fine Marsala to the main white wine. A bitter orange taste on the palate, followed by the Gentian and lemon peel. Perfect for a Martini Cocktail, or neat, on the rocks. The low sugar content of 25 grams/litre explains why it is really ‘Extra Dry’.

Mosgaard Organic Tangerine Gin    £39    Sweet and floral organic tangerine gin made from fresh tangerines. A perfect gin for cocktails adding a little acidity and apple-like sharpness or with tonic over plenty of ice. The citrus package gives it a more aromatic expression and is balanced with lime.

Domaine de Cassagnoles 5 Year Old Tenareze Armagnac   £41.28    From the second cru of Armagnac the small house of Cassagnoles has been making armagnacs for many years. This 5 year old has the traditional plummy style but with more of a greengage flavour and a clean finish.

Chateau de Bordeneuve La Grande Josiane, Orange Armagnac Liqueur   £42.84    Developed from an old family recipe, La Grande Josiane is the result of a subtle alliance between the fullness and strength of Bas Armagnac and the softness and perfume of bitter oranges, meticulously selected for their maturity. Can be served as an aperitif over ice, mixed with sparkling wine, as a digestif or in cooking on crèpes flambées and fruit salads.

Château de Beaulon 2000 Pineau des Charentes – White   £49.68    Another vintage Pineau des Charentes by Chateau de Beaulon. We understand that it was aged in casks previously used for ageing the famous white Sauterne, Chateau d’Yquem and the result is a wonderfully delicious, rich Pineau; a masterpiece of great authority of this rare drink.

David on Technical Topics – The Traditional Christmas Spirit

Posted / in Brandy Education, Famous Cognac Houses, History, Learning about Brandy and tagged

Brandy has been the traditional spirit of Christmas since the sixteenth century and was immortalised by Dickens in Mrs Cratchit’s Christmas pudding, “blazing in half of half a quarter of ignited brandy”. But it is said that cognac was recognised in 1540 after a Chevalier du Maron took two casks of newly reduced or distilled wine to a local monastery near La Rochelle. The monks tasted one of them and found it to be fiery and tasteless so left the other cask unopened. Many years later they found the unopened cask, the contents of which had matured and were very fine. They named the drink after the town it had come from, Cognac.

Cognac has been used over the centuries in all sorts of ways including the preservation of food, in particular meat and fruit where the term “plumming” referred to soaking raisins in brandy. Both fruit and meat were often incorporated into puddings which were much admired by George I, also known as the Pudding King. So enthusiastic was he that in 1714 he demanded that “plum pudding” be served at his Royal Christmas Feast. Brandy was often used to flame the pudding before serving.

In more recent times, Cognac was the favourite drink of Churchill who often enjoyed it with a cigar. It was said by the last French owner of the cognac house Croizet, that during the war, bottles of their cognac were smuggled out of France by submarine for Mr Churchill. He favoured the fine citrus qualities of their Grande Champagne cognacs.

Today, Hermitage Grande Champagne Pure Vintage Cognacs offer the finest traditional values at Christmas, but we do recommend you enjoy them as they are rather than set fire to them on your Christmas pudding.  Visit our Online Store to see the whole range.