Courvoisier Cognac Distillery

The Courvoisier story starts not in Cognac but in the Parisian suburb of Bercy. Here Emmanuel Courvoisier opened a business as wine and spirits merchant in 1809. It was two years later, in 1811, that Courvoisier met the man who would transform his business, none other than Napoleon Bonaparte, who was so impressed with the Cognac that he designated Courvoisier as the supplier to the French army.

Napoleon did not have long in charge of Europe. He was defeated by an allied army in 1815 at Battle of Waterloo and exiled to St Helena, a remote island between Africa and Brazil, but the relationship between the two names proved an enduring one. British soldiers tasted some of the Cognac captured from the emperor and dubbed it ‘Cognac Napoleon’ – a name that has stuck.