Ararat Vaspurakan 15 Year Old

When the French let you use their beloved "Cognac" designation, that’s impressive.

For good Brandy, you need good grapes and you know how you have to wait a bit after heavy rains to plant your grape seeds? With the sun shining for over 300 days in a year in the valley of Ararat in Armenia, the issue doesn't come up that often nowadays but the first grape seeds in the region were actually planted by Noah right after the big flood – you know, the one where he had to arrive on his ark because there was water literally everywhere. Anyway, what we're trying to say is that grapes and traditional Brandy-making go way back in Armenia and one of their oldest, if not the oldest Brandy companies is Yerevan Brandy Company that was founded in 1887 in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

For over a century, they've been producing the award-winning Yerevan Brandy from some of the oldest grapes in the world (Think Noah-old.). Using white grapes, fresh spring water and traditional methods that have been around for thousands of years, they make some pretty remarkable stuff and the story goes even Winston Churchill was a die-hard fan after Stalin gifted him a bottle at the 1945 Yalta Conference. Even the French thought it was really great and worth of their carefully (to put it mildly) guarded designation "Cognac" at the 1900 International Exhibition in Paris.

"Vaspurakan" is Armenian for "noble country" and in ancient times, Vaspurakan was considered the promised land. Honoring its noble homeland, Ararat Vaspurakan 15 Year Old spent a long time in Caucasian oak barrels that imparted an exquisitely harmonious combination of spice, coffee, and wood aroma. Bottled at 80 proof, this is some seriously luxurious stuff.