Category: cognac

More Fun With Distillery Waste

I am a big fan of distillery waste. Not bathing in it, but learning about it.

In most cases where a grain is distilled into whiskey or vodka, the spent grain (after all the sugar has been removed to be fermented) is sold off as animal feed. In Cognac (at Hennessy anyway) the spent lees (grape parts) are taken to an industrial distiller to get more alcohol out of them, and the "heavy sediments" of the grape juice go for cattle feed and for use in pharmaceutical products. In tequila production, the spent fibers from the agave pinas are sometimes put back on the fields as fertilizer, sometimes mixed with the heads and tails of distillation.

(There is a lot of leftover vegetation in tequila production.)

Many sugar cane distillers (either at the sugar factory for rum or at the distillery for rhum agricole) burn the spent sugar cane stalks to heat the steam engine that powers the distillery.

(Spent sugar cane to be burned at Rhum Clement distillery on Martinique.)

(Huge steam-powered gears at Rhum Clement distillery on Martinique.)

The heads and tails are the waste products of distillation, made up of alcohol, water, and undesirable flavor compounds that distillers don't want in their final products. These are also recycled. In scotch whisky, these are put back into the still for the next batch of distillation. (Somehow they never build up and overwhelm the spirit- weird.) Many companies sell the heads and tails to industrial distillers who make pure spirit, cosmetics, and other products. Some use this alcohol as fuel to heat their distilleries in winter.

(The condenser at Fettercairn.)

Speaking of heat, many (if not most) distilleries are mainly powered by hot water; heated either by an oil burner or by burning waste materials like the sugar cane stalks mentioned above. The hot water heats the stills to convert the liquids into steam. Cold water is also needed in the condensers of the still to convert the alcohol in steam form back into liquid form. Typically this cool water comes from a nearby stream or river. After it is used in the condenser it is now hot water, which isn't usually suitable for dumping back into the water stream from whence it came until it is cool. In some distilleries such as the one for Blue Ice Vodka, this hot water is used to lightly heat a warehouse in the winters.

What About the Water in the Still?

On my recent trip to the Isle of Jura, The Dalmore, and Fettercairn distilleries I learned about more industrial waste. This made me very happy.

For some reason nobody talks about the leftover water from distillation. Distillation is really just separating alcohol from water in order to concentrate the alcohol. Concentrate alcohol in beer and you get (unaged) whisky or vodka. Concentrate it in wine and you get brandy. The heads and tails contain alcohol and this is valuable so it gets recycled, but there is still the water left in the still.

(Stills at Fettercairn.)

At Fettercairn, Jura's master distiller Willie Tait explained it: After the first distillation, the leftover water also contains yeast bodies from fermentation. This water/yeast mix is called "pot ale," and it can be boiled down into a high-protein syrup used as cattle feed or as fertilizer.

After the second distillation the leftovers are mostly water with a high copper content with some congeners. Tait said this mixture is called the "spent lees," which is confusing because in cognac this means something different. I also failed to write down how this water is recycled if it is at all, so I have more fun facts about distillery waste to learn!

June 23, 2010
A Visit to Cognac Paul Giraud

My final visit in the Cognac region of France was to the house of Paul Giraud- quite literally his house. In my brief visit we first learned about Giraud's philsoophy: while other houses try to use blending to get a round and multi-faceted flavor profile, Giraud tries to emphasize particular flavors in each bottling.

I found a commonality in all the Giraud cognacs though, a strawberry rhubarb creaminess. The Naopleon bottling is meant to emphasize the grape flower aromas, whereas the Vielle Reseve (labeled as XO in the US) emphasizes fruitiness with flavors that change from fresh to dried plum as the spirit warms up in the glass. The Tres Rare bottling, which is delicious, 49 years old and emphasizes spice on the palate.

Paul Giraud is located in the beautiful little town of Bouteville. There the brand (it's all estate-grown grapes in their products) owns 40 hectares, and they actually harvest about half of their grapes by hand instead of machine.

Some of the aging cellars are located right next to a stream, keeping them cool and humid year-round. In this cellar like all of them in Cognac, we saw spiders all around. They love spiders in cognac cellars (surely you've seen webs in my other pictures) as they eat the bugs that otherwise may eat through the wood in the barrels.

You know, maybe I should start using that excuse not to clean my apartment- I'm just trying to protect the furniture.

October 9, 2009
Otard Cognac Visit

Last month I took a big trip to Cognac to learn about cognac. One of the many houses I visited was Otard. This cognac house is located in the former fortifying castle of Cognac in which Francois the First was born, on the Charente River next door to Hennessy.

A tour of Otard is part castle and city history tour, and part cognac tasting. The castle dates back centuries, but my interest really begins when it was purchased by the Otard family after the French revolution.

In the basement of the building are the aging cellars. As the river is running right next to the building, the cellars have 90 percent humidity, which the cellar master likes very much.

Otard buys eau de vie from the first four delimited regions- Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, and Fine Bois. On this visit we were able to taste raw spirit from three of them. As noted previously, grapes from the Fine Bois produce spirit that is fruity and aromatic right off the bat, but does't age well for long periods of time. You'd could definitely taste this as a fruity, tasty grape spirit.

The raw spirit from Grande Champagne was what I'd call tight- seems like you'd want to dilute it a bit to release the aromas. This they tease out after aging in oak. The spirit from the Borderies was, as it's supposed to be, very floral like lily or violet. Many brands use Borderies spirit to add this flavor to their blends.

Otard is available in the US but not widely so. They do a lot of business at duty-free shops and in Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia.

Otard also has a release Otard 55 that San Francisco bartenders recommended I try, as it is "natural strength" at 55 percent alcohol compared with the usual 40. This could be great for mixing into cocktails, but I'm afraid I have bad news guys: This bottling is being discontinued, as they say there was too much consumer confusion about it. Maybe they should have labeled it "Bartender's Blend" instead…

October 8, 2009
A Visit to Courvoisier Cognac

On a recent trip to France, I stopped in to Courvoisier cognac for a visit. Courvoisier is located not in the city of Cognac, but in Jarnac- one of the two other main cognac towns along with Segonzac. Jarnac appears to be a bigger city than Cognac and looks a bit more lively. I popped in to the tourism office and was told they don't really have any hotels in the city itself, just bed and breakfasts. The real hotels are the fancy chateaus a few miles outside the city.

Courvoisier dominates the Charente river waterfront here as Hennessy does in Cognac. Can you believe this picture isn't a postcard?

The house of Courvoisier is just as beautiful inside as it appears on the outside, though they have a bit of Napoleon overdose in the design theme. Courvoisier was the official supplier of cognac to Napoleon or some such, and they really are running with that. In the visitor's center downstairs, they even have one of his famous hats. (Branding suggestion to Courvoisier: make the Napoleon hat the bartender's new fedora.)

Courvoisier only purchases grapes for its cognac from the inner four delimited cognac regions- Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, and Fine Bois. They own two distilleries but work with several others to produce the eau de vie that will go into their bottles.

A unique thing about Courvoisier is that they pick out the trees that are used to make their barrels, then have them built especially for their use. (Most companies just buy barrels.) They use the traditional Limousin and Troncais forest trees, along with some from Jupille.

While there, we were treated to the La Nez de Courvoisier experience. Basically they take you into a groovy lounge, blindfold you, and blow smells in your face. You have a glass of cognac in front of you and the goal is to try to identify those same aromas in the cognac. They're bringing the La Nez de Courvoisier on the road in the US, but by the time you read this post they will all have happened.

October 7, 2009
Cognac Pierre Ferrand Visit

One night on a recent visit to France, I visited Cognac Pierre Ferrand. It was awesome.

Our group had the good fortune to visit Ferrand on the first day of the cognac harvest, and the bad fortune to arrive so late that we missed seeing it. Alas. Still, we had a tour of the still room where during the winter the pot stills run for 24 hours a day. Ferrand actually has three brands of cognac that include Landy and Gabriel, with Ferrand as the flagship brand.

The stills at Ferrand are a little different, as two of them have "spirit safes" on them. These enclosures are required by the government to ensure that all tax is collected on spirit products, but they're not usually required on cognac stills. At Ferrand they make Citadelle gin in the off season, so they had to have the safes installed.

Ferrand releases blended cognacs without age statements, along with some very old single vintage cognacs including one from 1914. However, they're particularly proud of a more recent vintage 1972 cognac that's a new release to the market. And delicious. Also in the line is Selection des Anges, bottled at the point where the angel's share (that which evaporates out of aging casks) is greater in proportion to what's left.

Speaking of aging, I was going to talk about dry versus humid cellars, or chais. When cognac ages in humid cellars like those along the Charente river, alcohol evaporates out of the casks at a faster rate than water (much like distillation), and the spirits in the barrel loses alcohol content over the years. The good news is that because of this, flavors are more concentrated in the spirit and it needs less dilution to reduce the cognac to bottle strength, which is nearly always 40 percent alcohol by volume. Dry cellars (often located upstairs in the same aging buildings) are hotter and water evaporates more rapidly, so the cognac retains or even gains percentage of alcohol by volume. One blender described the dry cellars as producing dryer and more subtle cognac, while the stuff aged in humid chais was more fruity and flavorful.

After the tour of the distillery and cellars, we drove to the very modern blending facilities, which happen to be located behind brand owner Alexandre Gabriel's rather fabulous house.

We had a long and very fun dinner inside and that, friends, was a great night.

October 6, 2009
Cognac Frapin Visit

A few weeks ago I went to France to learn about cognac. One of the stops was the house of Cognac Frapin.

Frapin sells only estate-grown/distilled/aged cognac, produced in the Grande Champagne delimited region of the cognac area near the town of Segonzac.

Frapin is a massively impressive operation from the cellars to the blending room designed by Mr. Eiffel (yes that one) to the bangin' castle they own where we had lunch.

We first looked at the bottles, which are unusual for a few reasons. First of all, they sell not only vintage cognacs but multi-vintage cognacs of their "Multimilleseme" line with the three vintages in each. The years are listed on the labels.

To sell vintage-dated cognac, the brand must be able to prove that it comes from the year on the label. As the government didn't track this until relatively recently, this was a hard thing to prove, but some brands like Frapin clearly had their paperwork in order.

One thing I didn't notice until I looked on their website it that they have one bottling with a minimum age statement- "15 years old" stating that the youngest cognac in the bottle is 15 years old. I didn't know this was legal in cognac but I guess they are able to prove it. (Other brands have vintage dates like 1980 but not usually a minimum vintage- only a single vintage.)

I stated in a previous post that the aging process for cognac is a dynamic one and I think the product description (taken from the website) of the 15 year old really demonstrates what a cognac can go through before it hits the bottle:

Aging: Only 6 months in new oaks from Limousine area to preserve the fruit and characteristic of the Cognac. Then, 10 years in red casks (5 years old cask). Aged 8 years in dry chai and 2 years in humid chai. Then the cognac is blended with older cognac Grand Champagne from Frapin to add complexity from the very old Eu de Vie and aged a other 5 years in very old cask in a humid chai to mature the blend.

What is the difference between a dry chai and a humid chai? More on than in a later post. Also more on the dusty cellars later. The spiderwebs in cognac cellars are not a bug but a feature.

After the cellar tour, we had lunch at the Chateau de Fontpinot that is, as it looks, rather lovely.

October 5, 2009
A Cooperage in Cognac

I've been to nearly 50 distilleries of all kinds of spirits, but a few weeks ago was my first visit to a real cooperage- finally! Vicard Tonnelleries is a 6th generation cooperage near Cognac in France, where they produce 60,000 French, Eastern European, and American oak barrels each year.

American oak? Yes indeed. They buy trees in the US, let them dry a bit (I believe they said they're split into staves in the US), ship them to France and make barrels out of them there. Then some of them are shipped back to the US and other countries for use.

Speaking of drying barrels, American oak staves only have to dry for two years, while French oak dries for I believe four years. At this cooperage all staves are air-seasoned (left to dry outdoors) while in the US many are dried in kilns.

American oak barrels were described as aromatic and useful in short aging of spirits, whereas French oak barrels have more tannins, add structure to wine and spirits, and are better for long aging. French oak barrels are more expensive, but that's also in part because they're cut differently than American oak barrels. French oak staves are cut so that only 30 percent of the log is used, whereas American oak staves use the opposite- 70 percent.

This huge cooperage is very automated, yet dozens of workers end up working on every barrel. The cooperage has machines and staging areas for splitting logs, further splitting, making staves, assembling barrels, making lids, installing lids, toasting barrels, testing, labeling, and I'm sure many other processes. During and between each one, a worker is on hand to do physical tasks as simple as moving barrels and as complicated as fitting a lid.

When a barrel is assembled by hand, staves are placed into a circle with one or two hoops around the bottom, then the top staves are pulled closer together by fitting a cable around the top staves, heating the inside of the barrel staves with fire, and cooling the outside with water while pulling the cable tight. Here though, the half-assembled barrel goes into a giant steam machine and the cable is tightened automatically. When it comes out, the cooper fits the top hoop and tightens it on.

They also make some gigantic barrels of the sort you'd use for blending, fermenting, and storage. I think one would make an awesome cottage for the backyard, but then again I'm basically 12 years old and want to build a fort.

October 2, 2009
A Visit to the House of Remy Martin Cognac

In France recently, I had a tour and dinner at the house of Remy Martin in Cognac. They don't allow photography in the cellar, so this post is a little light on the pictures. (Suck it up and read.)

We entered the building at night so it's hard to recall exactly what the house complex looks like, but if memory serves me right the buildings (almost a campus) was a combination of old and new architecture, the traditional tan stone buildings integrated with new glass-heavy buildings. We did a walk through of the distilling demonstration and aging cellars, then headed upstairs for a meal.

Remy's products are made from grapes grown in either the Grande Champagne or Petite Champagne regions. The VS product is 100% Petite Champagne,the higher end products are 100% Grande Champagne, and everything in the middle is a blend of the two regions. (The above picture is the blending room, by the way.)

A blend of at least 51% Grande Champagne and the rest Petite Champagne may be labeled as "Fine Champagne" on the bottle, and most of Remy's bottles are. As can be seen on the descriptions of the range here, each successive bottling labeled as Fine Champagne has a higher percentage of Grand Champagne than the last.

The real surprise of the night was the pre-dinner lounge with passed fish appetizers and the new Remy Ice Boxx. When the cognac (We had the VSOP- not sure if the VS is standard) was chilled to -18C in these machines it was surprisingly flavorful and nutty and not at all what I expected.

Cognac as the new Jager? I can't wait to see how this turns out.

September 30, 2009
Cognac Tesseron Visit

While in France recently I visited the cognac house of Tesseron. This brand is notable for having probably the second largest collection of old cognacs in demijohns in all of Cognac.

Cognac can only age for so long in barrel before the spirit becomes flabby and loses its aromatic qualities. For cognac made from grapes grown in the Grande Champagne (the growing area producing grapes that age the longest), most cognac caps out at no more than 75 years in wood, though there are exceptions. After that point, the spirit is transferred to glass demijohns- round bottles about the size of a water cooler refill. These are stored in what is called the Paradis cellar at each house, and a visit to the paradis is a part of every cognac house tour.

The cellars at Tesseron date back to the 13th century and were once part of a crypt of the local church. We visited two cellars and saw rows and rows of cognacs dating to the 1860's- and were lucky enough to be able to sample some. This time is just as Phylloxera came to the region, destroying nearly all the vines in Cognac. These old grape vines were of a different variety than the Ugni Blanc planted today, so being able to taste them is quite special.

Like many brands, Tesseron has a long history of selling its unaged and aged eau de vie to the big houses, but then decided to sell some under its own name. The brand Tesseron was launched in 2003 and releases only products XO and above in age- no VS or VSOP.

Tesseron has several releases that would be vintage-dated but this is not legal in cognac unless the dates can be absolutely proven. (More on this in a future post.) Brands like Tesseron try to get around this by not labeling the bottles but letting people know what's in it. They label their bottles "Lot 90" "Lot 76" and so on, to imply the date of the cognac, but I did not verify with the brand that everything in the bottle comes from the year of the "lot" on the label and older.

Tesseron also sells cognac in 1.75 Liter bottles, which is fun. They have both the "lot" line and these sexy round "Extreme" line bottles shaped like a round demijohn. I think the black one would look particularly good in my apartment. (It's the holiday season coming up, I'm just sayin'.)

September 28, 2009
Cognac Visit: Bache Gabrielsen

While in the Cognac region of France, I stopped in to cognac house Bache Gabrielsen for a visit. I was greeted by fourth-generation family member Herve Bache-Gabrielsen and taken to their tasting room around a wooden table in the upstairs office.

Bache Gabrielsen is located on a small, nondescript street in Cognac. There are few signs to identify that the street holds buildings for blending, aging, bottling, and other storage. The company owns other warehouses as well (it's not safe or legal to hold too much cognac within the city- fire would be a very bad thing) but the white buildings on a narrow side street give no clue as to their rather large storage capacity indoors.

The brand is Norwegian though they've been in Cognac for 100 years, and still their largest markets are Norway and other Scandinavian countries. It turns out that Norway consumes the most cognac per person in the world. Who knew?

Herve also said that there is currently a glut of sorts of aging barrels due to a past overproduction of cognac and a previous economic collapse. Thus there is a lot of 20+ year old cognac sitting around in barrels that producers are using in their XO products. Eventually though this glut will dry up and he predicts it may be hard for some producers to maintain a consistent flavor profile in their products when there is less older eau de vie around to go into them.

Smaller brands like Bache Gabrielsen have both problems and opportunities in the market. They can release small batch products without the overhead and marketing support of larger brands, but on the other hand they are selling so much less it may be hard to educate consumers on what they're drinking.

Bache Gabrielsen has two cognac lines that they call Classic and Pure and Rustic. The Classic line, like most all cognacs, has caramel added for color consistency and sugar to soften the spirit, but the Pure and Rustic line (that is called "Natur and Eleganse" in the US) has neither. I found it definitely had a stronger alcohol attack on the tongue and was a more 'raw' tasting spirit, but not in a bad way- more like rye whiskey as opposed to bourbon. (I wonder if it might mix better in cocktails than most cognac.) I thought the XO was a particularly good balance between alcohol sharpness and wood softness.

All in all, it was great to see this small house hidden on a narrow street within the city limits, doing something new in old Cognac.

September 24, 2009