Last Night's Tipple

Armagnac is Cognac's poor country cousin. Both Cognac and Armagnac are regions in southwestern France, with Armagnac to the south of Cognac in Gascony, that give their names to distinctive kinds of brandy. But Cognac gets all the glory, and Armagnac is not well-known. Both Cognac and Armagnac are primarily based on the Ugni Blanc grape, which makes bad wine but very good brandy. Cognac, though, is double-distilled in copper pot stills, while Armagnac is (usually) distilled only once in a distinctive continuous still. I have heard this still called a column still, and I suppose that it might be. Here's the problem, though. Everything that I've read indicates that the Armagnac still was invented in the 18th Century, but the modern column still was invented in the early 19th Century by Aeneas Coffey. So reason dictates that the Armagnac still must differ in some ways from the column still. In addition, note that Bourbon producers, in an attempt to raise production and lower costs, attempted to make Bourbon with a single column-still distillation (ie, they dispensed with the traditional second distillation in the doubler or thumper). It didn't work. The Bourbon produced by this method was not good. Brandy is different from Bourbon; but if something was missing from a Bourbon produced by a single column-still distillation, it seems reasonable to think that something might also be missing from a brandy produced by the same method. But nothing is missing from Armagnac, which suggests to me that the continuous stills that Armagnac producers use differ in some important particulars from traditional column stills.

Armagnac is Cognac's country cousin in another way, too. Cognac (at least good Cognac, which is not what most Cognac sold in the US is) is polished and urbane. Armagnac is not. At its best, it's bolder and more rustic. Armagnac is subdivided into three subregions: Téranèze, Haut-Armagnac, and Bas Armagnac. Bas Armagnac is widely acknowledged to produce the best brandy. My drink last night was Grassa et Fils Bas Armagnac Cuvee Speciale. There was no age statement on the bottle, but its color was dark enough that it must have been in barrel for a number of years. It had the same metallic nose that I associate with Cognac, but there was a good bit of vanilla and soot on the palate. It had more personality than most Cognacs that I have tasted, and I liked it. Unfortunately, I won't be drinking it any more: last night's drink finished the bottle, and it doesn't look like it's imported into the US anymore. Alas.