A wounded Irish soldier crawls from a blood-soaked battlefield in the French countryside. He survives, but his fighting days are over. So he settles in the Cognac region, and in 1765, starts a modest brandy business. Richard Hennessy could never dream that 260 years later, his name would ring out—not just in the world of fine spirits, but in the universe of hip-hop. No liquor brand in existence has more musical name-drops than Hennessy (mentioned in over 2,500 songs!). But the brand’s accomplishments go far beyond rhyming with “Tennessee”: Hennessy is the top-selling cognac in the world. The brand played a major role in supporting civil rights, as the first-ever corporate sponsor of the NAACP. And when Black soldiers fought bravely to liberate Europe in WWII, grateful French farmers handed them bottles of Hennessy as thanks. Find out how a Prohibition loophole helped Hennessy get a foothold in the US; how an Olympic medalist unlocked Hennessy’s sophisticated appeal; and why Hennessy cognac is the best idea yet.

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