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Armenia - The Cognac Republic


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#1 gamavor

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Posted 21 August 2004 - 11:03 PM

Armenia


// THE COGNAC REPUBLIC


Little Armenia has a whole set of brands that have become symbols of the country: brandy, Ararat, Radio Armenia, and finally Armenians themselves. Ironically, cognac recently turned out to be brandy, Ararat is outside the country, and so are most Armenians. And it turns out there never was a Radio Armenia.



This cask is laid down in honor of Boris Yeltsin. He could ask to have it sent to his home at any time, but it keeps better here


Three Great Nations

Here is a Radio Armenia joke: " How many great nations are there in the world?" Answer: "Just three-Russians, non-Russians, and Armenians." It's true that Armenians never hesitate to talk about themselves in superlatives. Residents of Yerevan invariably remind visitors to the capital that their city is 300 years older than Rome. They also do not forget to mention that Armenians became Christians before Byzantium; two years ago (2001), the republic celebrated the 1700th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity as the national religion. Armenia was not always so small either. Under Tigran the Great, its possessions stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and the country was called Greater Armenia.


Then Armenia endured several difficult centuries and shrank dramatically in size. Today, twin-peaked Ararat (Sis and Masis in Armenian), Armenia's national symbol, which literally hangs over Yerevan in clear weather, is located in Turkish territory, just like Armenia's ancient capital, Ani.


However, none of this affects Armenians' national pride. They have recently taken to calling their capital "little Paris"; and Armenians actually have warm feelings toward France. This may be because they resemble the French in their lively nature, but it is more likely because France is home to the world's second-largest Armenian community, which has given the world such celebrities as Charles Aznavour and Cher.


The world's largest Armenian community lives in California and is no less of a market for Armenian goods than Russia. Armenians are weighed down by their isolation from the rest of the world, which is the result of a closed border with Azerbaijan, difficult relations with Turkey, and deteriorating relations with Russia and Georgia. Armenians resent the inaccessibility of the Russian market, especially since Armenia is Russia's main partner in the Transcaucasus: the country's entire antiaircraft defense system, as well as protection of the border with Turkey, the power industry, and many large companies (in repayment of debts to Russia), have been turned over to Russia.


At the same time, the worldwide Armenian diaspora helps Armenia; for example, billionaire Kirk Kirkorian has given $180 million for road reconstruction. Yerevan is probably the only capital whose roads resemble the aftermath of a bombardment: holes half a wheel diameter deep lie in wait everywhere and there is no way around them. Yerevan residents compare driving around the city to figure skating.


One of the worst road incidents is connected with a romantic story. One day, they brought a female elephant to Vova, a male elephant living in the Yerevan zoo. Vova was charmed by the lady, and when the time came to part, he was deeply distressed. In his confusion, Vova broke out of the zoo, overturned several trolleybuses, trampled a large number of cars, and headed resolutely for the city center to let them have it. As he approached the center, he got into a battle with a police detachment that tried unsuccessfully to shoot him; he was finally killed by an armored troop carrier. As experts in amorous affairs, Yerevanites still recall Vova's tragedy with sympathy.



Can you guess who is this? Yes, Robert not DeNero, but our very own Kocharian. smile.gif

For Russians, Armenia remains a set of stereotypes. Two hundred years ago, a great poet expressively described a scene thus: "The Armenian kissed the young Greek woman." However, the story ended badly. Later, Armenians, like Georgians, were identified with market vendors, although it is not they - Azerbaijanis who control Moscow's markets.


Without a doubt, the most outstanding Armenian brand is cognac. The appearance of a bottle of Ararat, Ani, Nairi, Akhtamar, or Vaspourakan on a holiday table added prestige to the occasion. Doubts about the legitimacy of the expression "Armenian cognac" have arisen only in the last ten years. However, even after French owners arrived at the Yerevan Cognac Factory, its products continued to be called cognac in Russia, and not brandy.


Another important brand is also called Ararat, but it is not cognac but rather a football team that was champion of the USSR in 1973. It is no longer a very important team; the Grand Tobacco Co. Ltd. Factory team has become the leader of the Armenian football championship instead. There were also Yerevan cigarettes with a black filter that were called Akhtamar, like the cognac.


What else comes to mind? Tsakhadzor, a mountain resort and the USSR's main Olympic center, of course. Then there are mineral waters like Bjni, Jermuk, and Arzni. And shoes. In the time of the famous "Soviet quality", shoes made by the Masis and Nairi factories in Yerevan were in great demand, although these factories are no longer in operation. On the other hand, many small companies in Armenia successfully make "real Italian-style" shoes and Armenians take pride in their high quality.


Jewelry is another ancient Armenian specialty. Foreign sales of cut diamonds that Armenia obtains through an agreement with Diamonds of Russia-Sakha (ALROSA) are an important source of income. Specialists of the old Soviet school remember the "mailboxes", the local radioelectronics industry [called "mailboxes" because the factories or offices were secret and were identified only by a mailbox address] that labored hard and long for the good of the Soviet defense industry and ordinary citizens.


There is also no forgetting YerAZ minibuses, Armenia's answer to the Latvian RAF model. Unlike RAF, the Yerevan Automobile Plant (YerAZ) is still in operation. If this is still not enough, let's return to the brand we started with, Radio Armenia.


How Armenians Fired the Director of the CIA


Grand Tobacco has some unique equipment for testing cigarettes. This machine lights up by itself and inhales


Radio Armenia was asked: "Why did they fire the director of the CIA." Answer: "Because he couldn't give Kuzkin's mother's address or Radio Armenia's wavelength or figure out what the Voluntary Society for Collaboration with the Army, Air Force, and Navy (DOSAAF) did." On arriving in Armenia, the Dengi correspondents conducted their own journalistic investigation into Radio Armenia.


At first, it seemed fairly straightforward to locate a radio outlet where a group of specially trained wits sat splitting their sides with their own jokes and transmitting them around the world. However, in answer to our questions about Radio Armenia, Armenians only shrugged their shoulders enigmatically.


After some in-depth intelligence work, we came up with several versions. The first is obvious: "All our radio is Armenian." In Armenia, as in Russia, everyone listens to FM radio stations today; but there is no station called Radio Armenia that is capable of broadcasting outside the republic. The second version is that Radio Armenia is not located in Armenia at all, but is an invention of Moscow wits. However, only one Moscow radio station in the late 1980s ventured to call itself Radio Armenia and it did not last long.


The third version attributes the start of Radio Armenia to members of a Joviality and Wit Club (KVN); but the Yerevan team called the New Armenians clearly has nothing to do with it, because the name Radio Armenia was around long before any of them were born.


In our search for the truth, we turned to the management of Armenian Public Radio, who gave us a more conspiratorial version of the origin of Radio Armenia.


Amasi Oganessian, deputy general director of Armenian Public Radio: This invention has nothing to do with either Armenia or Russia. Radio Armenia appeared in the 1960s during the Cold War as the creation of a special section of the CIA. The jokes had a political nature, and their objectives included anti-Soviet propaganda and undermining the political regime of the USSR. The first collection of Radio Armenia jokes was published in West Germany in 1980.


Incidentally, the version of the secret-service origin of Radio Armenia is discussed on the Internet as well. In one of these forums, they talk about the reasons why the special Armenian joke sections in Western secret service agencies were eliminated. Once, at a congress of All-Union Broadcasting workers the chairman announced, " I now give the floor to the representatives of Radio Armenia…", and the whole room roared with laughter. The spies realized that the weapon of special propaganda had turned into a means of amusement for the whole country and turned the spies themselves into clowns.


However, Radio Armenia itself gives a different reason on the Internet for its closure: "It's just that Jew who thought up all the jokes left for Israel." Today, Armenians listen with pleasure to Russian Radio, and not Radio Armenia.


Armenians were insulted when their cognac started being called brandy following the example of the French. Anyone will tell you that "brandy is made by another process, but we've always used the cognac process." The industrialist Nerses Tairiants brought the technology from France and founded the Yerevan Cognac Factory in 1887. Twelve years later, his company was bought by Nikolai Shustov's trading house, purveyor to the court of His Imperial Majesty. Shustov's personal cask has been stored in the aging room since 1902, and only three people have drunk from it: Marshal of the Soviet Union Hovaness Bagramian, Boris Yeltsin, and President of Armenia Robert Kocharian.


Laying down personal casks has become a tradition at the factory. We saw casks for Yeltsin, Ryzhkov, Putin, Kvasnevsky, and other well-known politicians, each of whom (or their descendants) can send a courier for them at any time. There is also a "peace cask", which they promise to share when there is peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Finally, there is a whole lane of casks for Charles Aznavour, Armenia's favorite Frenchman.


There is also another custom of weighing important guests on the factory floor for the purpose of giving them a gift. The guest is seated on one pan of the scale, while the other pan is piled with gift cases of cognac. They say Boris Yeltsin weighed in at five cases. People at the factory have noticed that Western guests usually immediately transfer the amount of the gift to charitable funds, whereas guests from CIS countries instantly pack the cases into their motorcades.


In June 1998, the factory passed to the hands of the French company Pernod Ricard. According to Pierre Larretche, the factory's president and general director, Pernod Ricard wanted to strengthen its positions on CIS markets. However, 1998 was the year of the Russian default and within a year, output had decreased from 3.5 million bottles to 1 million. Production was restored to previous volumes only last year. On the other hand, the French owners took advantage of the time to redesign production processes and reorganize the management structure and sales system. It is shameful to admit that the cognac had formerly been aged in metal vessels with chips of oak bark thrown in. Now the cognac is properly aged in natural oak casks. For this purpose, the art of cooperage, lost in the 19th century, had to be revived in Armenia. Under an agreement with the Armles company, Armles has committed to planting two new Armenian oaks for every delivered tree.


Of course, the French are a long way from solving all local problems. For example, up to 30% of the cognac on the Russian market (and even in Armenia) is counterfeit. Russia accounts for 75% of the 93% of production going to export, and another 10% goes to Ukraine and Belarus. There are plans to increase exports by exporting to another 25 countries. However, expansion of production is hampered by a shortage of grapes, because the vineyards cannot satisfy market demand.


Here is a curious fact. Viticulture has started losing out to the rapidly growing tobacco industry, all because a lot of people in Armenia smoke: more than 50% of the population (the world norm is 40%). Grand Tobacco Co. Ltd. Is the country's largest taxpayer. The company has begun financing farmers to grow tobacco, and today this occupation is five to six times more profitable that any other agricultural sector. However, when peasants in the Ararat Valley (which is where cognac grapes are grown) went so far as to tear up their vineyards in order to expand the area under tobacco, the tobacco company's management took pity on cognac and stopped buying tobacco from Ararat peasants.


Tobacco has been cultivated in Armenia since the 17th century, but cigarette production began in 1938 when a fermentation plant and a workshop for producing papirosy [Russian cigarettes with a cardboard mouthpiece] started operating. In 1946, they were merged with the Armtabak company, which had 99% of the Armenian market and supplied cigarettes to the entire USSR.


After the collapse of the USSR, Armtabak completely lost its market and imported cigarettes filled its place. At that time, Grant Vartanian, one of Armtabak's managers, emigrated to Canada. Then in 1997, he got in touch with a former Armtabak colleague, Ruben Airapetian, and came to an agreement on setting up a Canadian-Armenian tobacco company. The partners interested farmers in growing tobacco, set up a fermentation plant, started marketing, bought a unique laboratory, and within a short time managed to win back 75% of the Armenian market. Today Grand Tobacco produces about 60 name brand cigarettes with a volume of 4 billion cigarettes per year, some of which are exported to the United States, Russia, and Arab countries. The factory's management is convinced that the quality of their cigarettes is as good as that of international brands.


David Galumian, executive director of Grand Tobacco Co.: We used to produce five or six name brands. Think of Kosmos and Salyut in soft packages without cellophane or foil, Prima, Astra… But these cigarettes differed only in their packages; the blends were all the same. Now about half of our production consists of elite cigarettes made of fine tobacco that we buy abroad.


The factory still produces those very same Akhtamar cigarettes with the black filter. The name comes from an Armenian legend poetically recreated by the writer Hovhannes Toumanian: Once upon a time on an island there lived a beautiful girl named Tamar, and every evening she would light a fire to guide her lover who swam to her from the mainland. One day, some wicked people put out the fire. The youth lost his way in the sea and began to cry "Akhtamar! Akhtamar!" (Ah! Tamara, Tamara!). The young man drowned, but the Akhtamar cigarette and cognac brands live on.


If You Like Bjni, You'll Love Noi

Any Armenian will tell you that Armenia has the best-tasting water in the world. The stony, treeless mountains of Armenia heated by the hot sun provide ideal conditions for keeping water pure and fresh. "You always want 'Evian'," argued an acquaintance. "Fine, just so you don't think I'm boasting, even if our water is no better it's no worse. But it's really even better."


In the USSR, water from the Armenian Bjni, Jermuk, Dilijan, and Arzni springs competed with Georgian Borjomi and Narzan from Kislovodsk. Today, water production is only one-tenth of what it was in Soviet times and it competes only with itself. About ten companies produce only Jermuk (the leader in sales volumes) and their product varies in quality (products with dark blue and black labels were recommended). Bjni is in second place in sales volumes; it belongs to one of Armenia's largest companies, the SIL group owned by the Soukiassian family.


Khachatur Soukiassian, president of SIL group: When there are a lot of producers of one brand, that's bad. One starts to advertise Jermuk and the others profit from its advertising without investing a single kopeck. And vice versa, if one produces a poor-quality product the rest suffer.


Khachatur Soukiassian is a parliamentary deputy and one of the richest people in Armenia. He founded his empire in 1989 with a car wash, a service station, and a parts business. For a short time, he was an owner of the Kotayk Brewery, one of the country's largest. Today more than 25 companies belong to the SIL group, including Armekonombank, Hotel SIL, the Pizza di Roma fast food chain, a construction company, and eight factories producing furniture, wood products, lemonade, corrugated packaging, etc. Soukiassian bought the Charynsavan Bjni plant in 1997 with the right to lease the spring for 25 years. Today the plant has 150 employees who produce more than 5 million bottles per year. America is the main export market, because they began working with it earlier, but Russia will soon catch up in sales volumes. In addition to Bjni, the factory has started producing a successful new brand of noncarbonated drinking water called Noi (Noah; Armenians believe that Noah was Armenian).


Khachatur Soukiassian: Along with water, we've started delivering juices to Russia-mango, guava, rosehip-and even we're surprised at how successful we are. It's too bad that deliveries to your country are complicated by problems with transportation services and the rigid dictates of sales networks.


Businessman and deputy Soukiassian sees some novel political approaches to cooperation with Russia. "Imagine how easily Russia could solve its problems with Georgia," he says. "They show a meeting with Putin on TV, and on the table you have Bjni instead of Borjomi! Then how Borjomi producers would start cursing their president!"


http://www.kommersan...0&doc_id=373890

#2 Yervant1

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Posted 16 June 2020 - 07:28 AM

Daily Beast
June 13 2020
 
 
 
Armenian Cognac Might Be the Booze World's Best Secret
SIP ON THAT

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos Getty

Stalin and the Soviet Union brought Armenian brandy to the masses—and with it, a complicated legacy that’s been hard to shake ever since.

Updated Jun. 14, 2020 1:00PM ET Published Jun. 13, 2020 5:09AM ET 

When you take the number 201 bus into Yerevan from Zvartnots International Airport, the first sign that you’re nearing the city is a hilltop citadel looming on the horizon with soaring arches, wrap-around stone walls, and landscaped lawns that slope gently down to the banks of the Hrazdan River—Armenia’s House of Parliament, you might think, or the prime minister's residence. But this grand, iconic building welcoming visitors from near and far is, in fact, a brandy factory. 

To most Westerners, Cognac and brandy conjure up images of French châteaux and European aristocrats, but ask anyone raised in the Soviet Union what country springs to mind when it comes to great brandy, and the answer is likely to be Armenia. Even today, for many Eastern Europeans and vast swaths of Central Asia, Armenian brandy remains the gold standard. So why do most Americans know so little about it? 

Armenia is legendary for its open-armed hospitality to foreigners—a local proverb states that every guest is a gift from god. So as a travel writer on the Caucasus beat, whenever I dined with Armenians, the bottle of kanyak (“Cognac” to locals) almost always came out at the end of the meal. Confession time: Until last summer, I turned my nose up at the stuff. You see, traveling around ex-Eastern Bloc countries, you learn quickly that European-esque commodities, from waxy Russian chocolate to ersatz Georgian “Champagne,” are seldom any good. One hundred-proof booze made in a Soviet-era factory? That sounded downright hazardous—a surefire night-ruiner if not a Molotov cocktail to the innards. 

But Ararat’s 10-year put me in my place. After a soul-satisfying meal at Sherep restaurant in Yerevan of roasted Lake Sevan trout, sharp local cheeses, and salads made from umpteen unrecognizable herbs, the waiter presented the check with a glass of caramel-colored spirit. Oh no, I thought, scanning the room for dry houseplants. I reluctantly took a sip. First came the vanilla notes, then hints of ripe tropical fruit followed by prunes and figs. Based on its complexity, I thought it must be French or Spanish. The waiter caught me blankly staring at my glass and sauntered over. “What is this?” I asked him. “Real Armenian kanyak,” he cooed,  “made from our native Armenian grapes. Best in the world.” I found myself nodding in hypnotic agreement. Wobbling back out into the thick summer air, I suddenly had a mission: to learn what made Armenian brandy so distinctive—and why on earth such a stellar product wasn’t more widely known. 

That’s how I found myself with a snifter between my fingers the next morning at the Yerevan Brandy Company (YBC), that hulking, fortress-like building at the edge of town, where Ararat 10 and all Ararat brandies are produced. I sipped while Zaruhi Saribekyan, the communications director, took me around. Our first stop was a hanging map of Armenia, which served as a helpful geography refresher: Armenia is situated between Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran; at about 30,000 square miles, it’s roughly the size of Maryland.   

Like French Cognac, Saribekyan explained, Armenian brandy starts with grapes—mostly endemic varieties with striking names like garan dmak, kangun voskehat (literally “golden berry”). “Our grapes grow in these regions,” she said, pointing to Ararat and Armavir on the Turkish border. After pressing them, she continued, the fresh grape juice ferments into a dry white wine, which is in turn distilled in French-style stills just like those you’d see on a Cognac factory tour in Charentes. The clear, high-octane liquid that dribbles out, eau de vie, is poured into Caucasian oak (Quercus macranthera) casks, where it mellows and matures for up to a decade, taking on a pleasing caramel color and woodsy depth in the process. Each brandy is then concocted according to blenders’ rigorous specifications, ensuring consistency year after year. 

Now that I understood the “what,” I wondered about the “why.”  With a bounty of other, long-established alcoholic traditions already existing in the region (wine, beer, and vodka, to name a few), why did Armenia choose to home in on kanyak?

To answer that question, we have to start at the end of the 19th century. At the time Armenia was ruled by the Russian Empire, whose aristocracy had been fawning over French Cognac ever since Hennessy hit the Russian market in 1825. Packaged in ornate glass bottles, Cognac was an instant status symbol. 

Armenia got its first brandy factory in 1877 by way of an entrepreneurial Armenian businessman named Nerses Tairan and his Russian cousin Vasily Tairov, who had studied winemaking and distillation in France. But it wasn’t until Russian liquor biz bigwig Nikolay Shustov bought YBC 21 years later that Armenian brandy truly took off. 

It’s easier to climb up Mount Ararat than to climb out of the Ararat cellars.
— Maxim Gorky

Shustov had cornered nearly half of the Russian booze market by the time he arrived at YBC and saw great potential in Armenia as a brandy-producing powerhouse, not only for the region but for the world: It had sprawling oak forests, abundant spring water, sunny weather ideal for ripening grapes, and winemaking knowhow gleaned from several millennia of viticulture (a 2007 archaeological dig revealed that Armenia might be the birthplace of wine). He founded Shustov and Sons on the site where YBC operates today, and by 1912, Shustov brandy was so prized that it was designated as official supplier of the court of Tsar Nicolas II. The Russian writer Maxim Gorky famously wrote, “It’s easier to climb up Mount Ararat than to climb out of the Ararat [brandy] cellars.” 

In 1900, Shustov’s kanyak bagged the gold medal in a blind tasting at Paris’s International Exhibition, shocking the judges by beating out all of the prestigious French Cognac houses. The French were so taken by this new, exotic Armenian brandy, in fact, that the government granted Shustov permission to use the formal designation “Cognac” on his labels—a short-lived indulgence that was struck down by decree in 1909. 

Shustov also came up with a shrewd marketing scheme that was remarkably ahead of its time. Allegedly, he would dispatch cohorts of well-heeled Armenians to the Continent, where they’d dine in fine restaurants and insist that they be served Ararat brandy. This, of course, was seldom behind the bar, so restaurant owners would rush to order it. Shustov effectively understood the principle of artificial demand before the term was even coined. 

Back on tour, Saribekyan led me down “Presidential Alley” (their term, not mine, for the record!), a hall hung with photos of over 30 presidents who had visited over the years, toward a massive metal door protected by a uniformed guard. “Now I will show you our paradise,” she said, beaming. The door opened and we entered a cathedral-like room filled with cabinet upon cabinet of rare brandy bottles—a century of history in liquid form. The air smelled musty and oaky and sweet. This was a spirits geek’s paradise.  

My eyes drifted to a row of bottles with yellowing labels. On them, I could make out “Dvin” in faded cyrillic lettering. “Dvin is the brandy Stalin supposedly gave to Churchill at the Yalta Conference in 1945, when Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met to mark the boundaries of postwar Europe,” Saribekyan said. I’d heard this yarn before—some versions even posit that Churchill had Stalin send him regular shipments of Armenian brandy into his old age—but I haven’t been able to verify it. The most reliable English-language book on Armenian food history, Armenian Food: Fact, Fiction & Folklore, by Irina Petrosian and David Underwood, traces the “Churchill-craze for Armenian Cognac” to an episode of the Soviet TV show Thirteen Moments of Spring, in which a character states that Churchill loved Armenian Cognac. “Since the program was extremely popular,” Petrosian and Underwood write, “that phrase was instantly accepted as a fact that didn’t need any supporting evidence.” Biographies of Churchill don’t mention Armenian brandy either.  

Saribekyan’s rebuttal? “Of course there’s no document that proves Churchill drank Dvin at the conference—what was eaten and drunk at official dinners was not protocolled or recorded at that time,” she said, adding that an Armenian intelligence officer who was present vouched that the Armenian brandy was indeed served to the British Bulldog.

 

In the 1930s, the regime decided that it was befitting of the ‘new Soviet man’ to enjoy luxury products previously reserved for the tsars.
— Lisa Granik, wine master

Regardless of what was poured at Yalta, Stalin, through his administration’s revolutionary reforms, was far and away the most influential force in the commercialization of Armenian brandy in the 20th century. At least that’s the opinion of master of wine and author of The Wines of Georgia, Lisa Granik. “In the 1930s, the regime decided that it was befitting of the ‘new Soviet man’ to enjoy luxury products previously reserved for the tsars, like Champagne, watches, perfume, chocolate, caviar—and, of course, Cognac,” she said. Producing and promoting such commodities on a mass scale aligned with the Soviets’ mission to sophisticate—and placate—a largely rural, illiterate citizenry that, by the time Stalin came to power, had been ravaged by years of poverty, war, and famine. 

Armenia, like other Soviet nations, was eager to industrialize and modernize, but beyond that, it wanted to cement itself as culturally Western. Following the genocide of the Armenian people at the hands of Ottoman Turks between 1914 and 1923, Armenians were understandably keen to purge any remnants of their Islamic-influenced past (Eastern Armenia was under Persian rule for more than 300 years). Kanyak, viewed as the epitome of European refinement, was a way to prove their European-ness, hence why its production was so widely embraced as part of Armenian culture. 

Just as Stalin chose his native Georgia to be the hub of Soviet winemaking, so his regime selected Armenia as a center of brandy production. After all, Yerevan had a number of factories already in operation, and Armenian brandy’s reputation had been established. By the 1980s, a quarter of the brandy produced in the Soviet Union came from Armenia, a staggering figure considering that the republic constituted a mere .001 percent of the USSR’s landmass.

 

The Soviet middle and upper classes were quick to bring Armenian brandy into their parlors, but at more than twice the price of vodka, the spirit was never an everyman’s drink. As in Europe, brandy was perceived as a special-occasion digestif, the type of tipple you’d serve guests you wanted to impress. It never went out of fashion, and the industry prospered—the palatial building I was standing in, constructed in 1953, stood as an emblem of that golden age. 

But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so did brandy production. Across the region, people could hardly afford bread, let alone digestifs. And because of longstanding trade embargoes with Western Europe and the U.S., there was no international market for Armenian brandy to keep the industry afloat. That lack of demand, paired with a tanking economy and a bloody protracted war in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, brought even the best Armenian brandy houses, YBC included, to their knees. 

Salvation for YBC—which remains the leading producer of Armenian brandy today—would come with controversy. In 1994 the French liquor corporation Pernod-Ricard acquired the ailing brand for $30 million ($52 million in today’s money). This infuriated Armenians. Ararat brandy was a hallmark of national identity and pride. How could such a symbol of Armenian culture be blithely auctioned off to a foreign drinks giant? 

But the deed was done, and nowadays most Armenians have come around to Pernod-Ricard. Ararat brandy is as refined and prestigious today as it always has been—improved, even, according to some critics. 

But who is drinking it? 

“Following the break from the Soviet Union, Armenian brandy companies continued to sell to Russia and former Soviet countries because they were the lowest-hanging fruit,” said Granik. “People there already knew Armenian brandy and perceived it as great.” Indeed, if you step into any upscale restaurant from Kyiv to St. Petersburg to Tashkent, you can all but bank on Armenian brandy being on the drinks list.   

European and American markets, however, remain elusive. “Remember, until recently, most Americans weren’t too keen on brown spirits anyway,” Granik said. “From the late 90s well through 2010, it was all about clear spirits—tequila, vodka, and the like.” But given the current craze for añejo tequilas, single-malt whiskies, and boutique rums, plus a newfound interest in the cuisines of the Caucasus (amber wine! khachapuri!), Armenian brandy seems ready for its break-out moment.  

Saribekyan and I were now leaving “paradise,” and the tour was wrapping up. Our final stop was a smelling station where gleaming metal domesare lifted to classic brandy aromatics in their raw form, including chocolate, oak chips, and dried apricots. A bowl of vanilla beans, intoxicatingly sweet, transported me back to the glass of Ararat 10 that I’d savored the night before. I took advantage of the quiet to ask Saribekyan whether she was optimistic about Armenian brandy’s future, whether she thought it was on its way to being trendy. “Trends are complicated in this industry because a historical company like ours has brandies ranging from three to 50 years old, each with its own target customer,” she said. “But our market research shows that in the last five years, many more young adults are drinking our brandies, both in Armenia and abroad.” YBC currently exports to 41 countries including the U.S.

An unlikely cheerleader for Armenian brandy is Serena Williams, who in March took to Instagram stories to gush about Shakmat, the Armenian brandy company founded in 2018 that her husband, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, helped create. For his part, Ohanian is “looking forward to a few much-too-long-Armenian-style toasts of brandy with close friends once this [quarantine] is over,” according to an Instagram post from April 8. Perhaps a younger, more agile brand like Shakmat will finally put Armenian brandy on American bar shelves and pave the way for more traditional brandy houses such as YBC, Noi, Kilikia, Proshyan, and others. 

In classic Armenian fashion, Saribekyan didn’t just say goodbye; she offered an open-ended invitation to return. The endless steps down to the bustling city gave me a moment to think about how dramatically Armenia had changed in the last century—evolving from a Soviet republic to a war-torn fledgling state to an unstable oligarchy to (thanks to the Velvet Revolution in 2018) a swiftly modernizing, Western-facing democracy. Through it all, brandy production never ceased. That is something worth raising a glass to.   


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#3 MosJan

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Posted 18 June 2020 - 10:52 AM

good morning : facebook user posted this > 
104648178_10157178645936479_464712609147
"My neighbor has around 50 bottles, selling at a very reasonable price."

was asking 45.000 AMD

happy day if it's real ;)



#4 Yervant1

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Posted 19 June 2020 - 08:31 AM

Yummy!!!!!!!!!! :Drink-glup:



#5 Yervant1

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Posted 08 June 2021 - 06:04 AM

Public Radio of Armenia
June 7 2021
 
 
Armenian brandy wins gold at Tokyo Whiskey & Spirits Competition
 
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20-year-old ARARAT Nairi brandy has been awarded the gold medal and “Category Winner” title at the Tokyo Whiskey & Spirits Competition held in Japan.

The Tokyo Whisky & Spirits Competition, operated by the Japan Research Center, aims to reveal and promote high-quality spirits worldwide. This year, 427 drinks from different countries participated in the competition, including a variety of world-renowned brands.

The competition was fierce for ARARAT Nairi, but the legendary Armenian brandy overcame both the first stage of the competition, the individual expert evaluation and the second-panel discussion and appeared in the “Best of the Best” category.

ARARAT Nairi brandy created in 1967, has won more than 30 gold medals in the world’s most prestigious competitions.

 


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#6 MosJan

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Posted 08 June 2021 - 01:18 PM

:ap: Jannn :ap:


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