Cognac Moment : Trying Cognac For The Very First Time

When we started doing cognac contest here on cognac.com, our goal was to help people expose to the taste and wonderful history surrounding cognac. So far we have ran two contests and both have been very successful. The last one we did took us by surprise though. Of course, we wanted the winner to use the prize money towards tasting cognac, but we didn’t know the winner would be kind enough to try cognac for the first time with her friends and also send us a guest post. Terri (@cocoancream on twitter), the winner of our last contest actually had a little cognac tasting event at her place. She took the time to share her experience on trying cognac for the first time with her friends. Below is the post Terri sent us followed by images of her and her friend’s trying cognac….for the first time.

Our First Sip

When I was told that I was the winner of a contest held by Cognac.com I excitedly scooped up my $100.00 prize money, grabbed my boyfriend Chris, and ran off to investigate the various liquor stores in Green Bay, WI. to see what wondrous varieties of cognac the town had to offer.

Much to our dismay we discovered that our small town didn’t carry much in the way of cognac, and that when we asked for help in deciding what to choose there was only a single person in all the stores combined who had even tried cognac! We visited four or five stores and between them we found only about six different cognacs to choose from. While there were at least three different XO’s (ranging from approx. $160.00 – $1800.00, a bit out of our price range), we settled on Remy Martin 1738, Courvoisier VSOP, and Hennessy VS.

Since neither my boyfriend nor I had ever tried cognac, we decided to make a little tasting party out of our good fortune and invited our two friends Angie and Derek (also cognac virgins) along for the ride.
After procuring proper snifters for this adventure we decided we didn’t want to be swayed by the brand name into liking one over another, so after a slightly complicated double switcheroo we were all sitting down to taste these three amber delights “blindly”.

Once poured, we held our glasses for a few minutes to warm the liquid inside. We could then smell the unique aroma each had to offer, from woody (we assumed the barrels it was aged in) to fruity, to slightly sweet. After sniffing each one we tasted, sipping a bit at a time and letting it sit for a few seconds in our mouths and on our palates before swallowing. Each had there own flavor, warmth in the mouth and warmth or “burn” in the throat and /or chest and since we had more than one cognac to try we could each taste smell and actually see the differences in them.

Surprisingly, HennessyVS and CourvoisierVSOP tied for top ranking in our tasting while Remy Martin 1738 fell into third place by quite a voting margin. Since I ended up with quite a bit of cognac left after this little introduction to cognac, I think I’ll be trying out a Cognac Summit sometime in the near future.

Thanks so much to Cognac.com for introducing me, my boyfriend and two other to the world of cognac through their awesome contests!! Cheers!!

Images from the cognac event hosted by Terri,

Thanks to Terri and her friends for trying cognac for the first time and we are proud that we were able to convince you to give it a try. If you would like to follow Terri and her friends on twitter please follow the links below

Terri : @cocoancream
Chris : @JiMpiSh
Angie : @AngieLeah
Derek : @GeckoDeLimon

Once again, thank you for trying out cognac. Hopefully, we turned you into cognac lovers just like us

Related posts:

1. Spreading The Joy Of Cognac, Few At a Time
2. A Small Gift From Us To You – Free Cognac
3. Free Cognac Tasting Event In New York – April 4th, 2009
4. The Day Cognac.com Came To My Rescue
5. Cognac Quiz : Participate and Win

4 Responses to “Cognac Moment : Trying Cognac For The Very First Time”

1. cocoancream says:

   April 15, 2009 at 2:28 am

   HEY LOOK!! I’M FAMOUS!!
2. The Day Cognac.com Came To My Rescue | COGNAC Your Guide To The Finest Drinks says:

   May 12, 2009 at 3:45 pm

   [...] for the first time. The winner of that contest went beyond our expectation and surprised us with a cognac tasting party of her own. She got a few of her friends together to let us know what they thought of this drink [...]
3. Cognac Glossary : Cognac words you should know | COGNAC Your Guide To The Finest Drinks says:

   May 19, 2009 at 5:33 am

   [...] A First Time Cognac Drinker’s Experience [...]
4. The Official Cognac Fan Page On Facebook | COGNAC Your Guide To The Finest Drinks says:

   September 1, 2009 at 6:42 am

   [...] try it out. We have been using Twitter for the same purpose and we have made some good friends and introduced cognac to some who had never even tasted it. Since the launch of this site we have come a long way and today we stand as the most popular and [...]