What Type Of Alcohol Is Hennessy?

When someone mentions "Hennessy" at the bar, you just know that they're running up a big tab. Even those who have no interest in spirits will recognize Hennessy as a premium liquor brand. And sure enough, even the cheapest entry-level Hennessy (or, as fans like to call them, Henny) will still go up to $50 for a standard 750-milliliter bottle of Hennessy Very Special (VS). The uninitiated might be wondering what exactly Henny is for it to be so pricey. And no, despite having the same color, it's not a whiskey — it's a cognac.

Cognac is a type of brandy. To get brandy, wine is distilled into a clear-colored alcohol known as eau-de-vie (French for "water of life"). After distillation, this potent spirit is packed into a wooden cask for a couple of years. When it's deemed mature, the cask is broken and voilà, out pours brandy.

Cognacs are made following pretty much the same process. However, there are things that set them apart, the most significant being the region in which they're distilled. In order to earn the name "cognac", the liquor has to be distilled in a very specific region measuring about 185,000 acres in southwestern France called, you guessed it, Cognac. It's the largest white wine-producing area in France and home to about 240 cognac distilleries (also called "houses"). Among these 240 houses and belonging to the group of the top-ranked cognac brands is Hennessy.

Now that we know what Hennessy is, let's see how it's made. In total, a bottle will go through six separate steps to go from the vineyard to your glass. First, Ugni Blanc grapes are harvested, pressed for juice, and fermented into white wine. The grapes must be Ugni Blanc and grown in the Cognac area, with no exceptions. These grapes are taken from vineyards located in different "crus" across Cognac – think of them as wine-growing districts, each one having distinct terroir  that give the grapes different characteristics depending on where they took root. Among Hennessy's chosen are Grande and Petit Champagne crus, which are known as the birthplaces of some of the highest-quality cognacs around.

The acidic Cognac wines are distilled two times in traditional Charentais copper stills. The first distillation, called "brouillis," is around 30% alcohol-by-weight (ABV) and, while flavorful and aromatic, has some impurities. These impurities are filtered out in the second distillation ("bonne chauffe") while bringing the spirit to about 70% ABV. The clean spirit, called eau-de-vie, is casked, then brought to aging cellars, or "chais", to mature.

The final cognac is created from a mixture of eaux-de-vie selected by Hennessy's Master Blender and the distillery's Tasting Committee. They convene at 11 a.m. daily for a tasting, with the best ones selected to be blended with others to create the final product — the one you'd be enjoying in a snifter glass at tasting rooms or the comfort of your home.