Originally only at the Sazerac House in New Orleans Sazerac de Forge & Fils “Finest Original” Cognac, Sazerac Co. said it was expanding the product o new markets including New York, California and Illinois. It will continue its expansion to additional markets throughout 2022.
The Sazerac de Forge & Fils “Finest Original” Cognac has its roots in the original Sazerac de Forge et Fils Cognac, part of the illustrious 17th, 18th and 19th century Sazerac family business empire that included a cognac house, an iron foundry, paper-mills and pottery-making.
Each of these businesses were history-making because of the Sazerac de Forge family – the U.S. Revolutionary Navy was armed with Sazerac-provided cannons, the Tsars of Russia printed their bank notes on Sazerac-made paper, the proprietary color “Sazerac Blue,” which is prominently featured on the new cognac package, was found on chinaware shipped worldwide, and the original Sazerac cocktail made with Sazerac Cognac was sipped in coffee houses around New Orleans. Ironically, the original Sazerac Coffee House was located a mere 350 yards from the new Sazerac House, located on Canal and Magazine Street in New Orleans.
According to Albert Sazerac de Forge’s private notes, the first U.S. shipment of Sazerac de Forge & Fils Cognac arrived in New York in 1782, followed by New Orleans in 1784 and San Francisco in 1786. By 1833, Sazerac de Forge & Fils was listed among the top six cognac producers in the world and by the mid-1800s it would be available on every continent.
Sazerac de Forge & Fils Cognac continued to grow until the catastrophic Phylloxera blight wiped out 85% of the grapevines in France in the final quarter of the century. As a result, supplies of cognac became increasingly rare and many producers disappeared completely.