00:00300 years ago, a man called Rémy Martin decided to sell cognac under his name.
00:08And what's very unique about Rémy Martin, he was a winemaker, a wine grower.
00:14And we are the only major great house of cognac to be created by one wine grower,
00:22where a lot of the other houses were created by traders.
00:26And from the beginning, this relationship to the grapes has been very important for Rémy Martin.
00:35I think the recipe for success is this obsession for quality. Make no shortcuts.
00:43What sets Rémy Martin apart from other cognac producers is its style. Our style
00:50is our quality. I think we've always tried to seek the best quality with no compromise.
00:57That's really the obsession. And it starts with the ingredients.
01:04It starts with the land where we make cognac.
01:08Cognac is a brandy, but not all brandies are cognac.
01:14There is only one place in the world where we can make cognac.
01:17It's about 80 miles north of Bordeaux in France. And the way we make cognac is protected by law.
01:25And within cognac, there are six growing areas.
01:29And some people ask me, what does fine champagne mean on the bottle of Rémy Martin?
01:34It refers to the Petit and Grand Champagne Cru growing areas that are the heart of the cognac
01:40region. Since 1948, we've made a partnership with 800 families of wine growers, where we
01:46source exclusively all our grapes from these people.
01:51Within cognac, there are different grades, starting with the VS, which is the
01:58number one in volume in the US market. About 70% of the market is VS in volume,
02:04which means that the youngest component in the blend is minimum two years.
02:08Then you have VSOP, which means it's only after four years of aging in the barrel
02:14that it can be entitled to go in the bottle. And then you have the EXO, which means that in the
02:20bottle you have the youngest component that is minimum 10 years old. So after distillation,
02:25we call that an eau de vie. After distillation, they are aged and blended in order to become a
02:31cognac. And at Rémy Martin, we decide to age a bit longer than what's required by law.
02:37The more you age, the more you get interesting flavors in the cognac. Within the blend,
02:45there are different ages, different treasures from the house. And this is the recipe of the
02:51cellar master, Baptiste Oiseau, to recreate every year the same style, the same quality,
02:57with different harvests. For the birthday, we created a special coupe anniversary. We call it
03:04la coupe 300 ans in French, which is a limited edition. Using Grand Champagne eau de vie
03:11exclusively, Baptiste Oiseau, the cellar master, has put aside some exceptional blends of cognac
03:19eau de vie and added those eau de vie to the blend of the 290th coupe, which was inspired by
03:26the blend of the 275th anniversary of the house. So we call it the perpetual reserve, which is a
03:32tradition where we have a blend that is nourished and transmitted to the next
03:38generation of cellar masters. So it's a symbol of transmission.
03:47It feels very special for a Frenchman and for Rémy Martin to be in New Orleans because there's a
03:52strong French history in New Orleans. Today in New Orleans, we are going to bring the community
03:58of bartenders together for an anniversary, for a birthday party with Rémy Martin. Not a lot of
04:04people know that cognac is great in cocktail. They have sometimes this perception that cognac
04:10cannot be mixed, or it would be a sacrilege to mix it. Not at all. Some of the first cocktails
04:15created were with brandy. The Salz Rack cocktail is a great example because it was one of the first,
04:22perhaps the first cocktail ever created, and it's made with brandy.
04:26And in the 19th century, the brandy was mainly cognac. Cognac is extremely versatile,
04:33and it's really interesting mixed in cocktails. My name is Deke Dunn. I run a bar called Allegory
04:42in Washington, D.C., and we're at the Rémy Martin 300-year anniversary party.
04:47We love making cocktails with cognac. Cognac has such an amazing texture, flavor profile, depth,
04:53body. The barrel gives the cognac a lot of character, a lot of depth in the cocktails.
05:00Normally, we have at least one to two cocktails with cognac on our menu at any given time.
05:05This is our cocktail called Beat of the Drum. This is our take on a sidecar. We're celebrating
05:10Rémy Martin's 300th anniversary. We wanted to make a delicious sidecar that really kind of
05:14captured the modern molecular gastronomy movement, which is something we do a lot in our
05:20bar. And so this is fermented huckleberries combined with some Mesoamerican orgeat, which
05:26is basically Mesoamerican ancient grains soaked in water, combined with some mace, cinnamon bark,
05:31and some Rémy Martin 1738. We garnish the cocktail with a piece of huckleberry popcorn.
05:38The future of cognac is not an old man's drink. It can be for everyone.
05:42My name is Jamesy Musk. I'm from Accomplice Bar in Los Angeles. This is our opulence table
05:47milk punch that we're presenting for the Rémy Martin 300th anniversary party.
05:51This is utilizing Rémy XO, and we're presenting it tonight because when I graciously won the Rémy
05:58Martin BTA competition a few years ago, the most memorable moment for me was in cognac,
06:04experiencing the opulence table, which is a gigantic spread of ingredients, and each one
06:08of them is a flavor that is pulled from Rémy XO. So inside you have, of course, Rémy XO. We have
06:15pear, mustard, both Dijon and Chinese hot mustard because we work at a Taiwanese restaurant.
06:21There's honey, walnut, blue cheese, thyme, bay leaf. So a really luscious, rich, opulent milk
06:30punch. And then what better way to show opulence than with a little bit of gold flake right on top.
06:38How fun.
06:43I like to say we are in the business of sharing, you know. We share great moments,
06:49and there is a unique versatility with cognac. It can be enjoyed neat in a cognac glass, in a snifter,
06:57in order to fully enjoy the aromas of the experience, but it's also very versatile.
07:02The centaur that I have here is the symbol of Rémy XO, and this centaur embodies the values
07:09of Rémy XO with the feet in the ground, and the head aiming for the stars, aiming for the light,
07:16and looking at the future with optimism and ambition. My hope is that we will continue
07:24to craft exceptional cognac for the next 300 years.
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