Cognac Review: Hennessy XO

Hi, good evening. By popular request, I'm going to review another cognac, Hennessy XO. Received a lot of email from Korea and two from Japan asking me to review this cognac. Hennessy XO is a classic. It's well known, probably very popular in the clubs in the United States, and I think the preferred cognac of rap stars. Tonight, we're going to take a look at it and see if it's worth the high price and the great prestige. The packaging, very elegant. Take a look. Nice. Yeah, I mean, for the price, it should be really nice. Elegant little tab here to pull out your bottle. This bottle is rather depleted. I bought it a couple of weeks ago, and frankly, it has not lasted long between me and my friends. It is bottled at 40% alcohol by volume. And what else can I tell you? The O2V making up XO range in age between 10 and even as much as 70 years. I have read the average age of the O2V making up this cognac is reported to be 45 years. So that high price is because some of the ingredient O2V are old in age costs. Cork stopper, very heavy top part to the cork. Again, elegant. You're paying a lot of money. You want the quality. So the quality is in the packaging. Question is, is the quality in the bottle? It's got a nice hue to it. That's really not important in terms of our tasting. Cognac, when it initially, or when the O2V come out of the still, it's white like water. It's aging in French oak that produces that dark color, and hopefully not any E150 or artificial coloring. The nose, rum cake, raisins, cinnamon. There's some spice, some nutmeg. It's a nice nose. It's refined, sophisticated as it should be at this high price point. On the palate, initially a crushed velvet of red licorice, milk chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, hazelnut. The finish is very long. The flavors that remain are a mixture of black pepper, raspberries, currants, red orchard fruit, rose water, strawberry, cocoa, a mix of dark chocolate. It's good. It is refined. It is expensive. The dominant flavor for me in Hennessy XO is milk chocolate with a hint of nutmeg, maybe some almond or hazelnut. It's beautiful stuff. If you tire of whiskey or you want to change it up, I like to go to cognac. It's very drinkable. If you want to know what the magic of cognac is, if you spend the money, Hennessy XO will explain it to you in the most elegant of terms. Now, what I like to do with cognac, especially Hennessy, is to pair it with some Swiss chocolate, milk chocolate that is. Just makes it so much nicer. You take a little sip of cognac, a little bite of milk chocolate, and we're in heaven. Hennessy XO, I recommend. Cheers.