Hennessy


Jas Hennessy & Co., commonly known simply as Hennessy, is a French cognac distiller with its headquarters located in Cognac, France. Jas Hennessy & Co. sells about 50 million bottles a year worldwide, making it the largest cognac producer, supplying more than 40 percent of the world's cognac, a variety of brandy. The company is owned by Moët Hennessy, which is in turn owned by LVMH and Diageo.

History

The Hennessy cognac distillery was founded by Irish Jacobite military officer Richard Hennessy in 1765. His son James Hennessy gave the company its name Jas Hennessy & Co in 1813. During the 1970s, Kilian Hennessy, a fifth-generation direct descendant of Hennessy, became the CEO of Hennessy, succeeding his first cousin Maurice-Richard. Kilian Hennessy spearheaded the company's 1971 merger with Moët et Chandon, which created Moët Hennessy.
Moët Hennessy merged with Louis Vuitton in 1987, creating one of the world's largest luxury brand conglomerates, Louis Vuitton • Moët-Hennessy or LVMH. In 1988, a management crisis led to the group's takeover by Bernard Arnault, owner of the haute couture house Christian Dior, with the support of Guinness. Kilian Hennessy remained on the company's advisory board until his death in 2010 at the age of 103.

Marketing

Recently, Hennessy has tried to broaden the appeal of the drink beyond its traditional base of older drinkers by introducing new products such as "Pure White", "Hennessy Black" and "Fine de Cognac" and marketing them accordingly.

Products

Hennessy Literary Awards

Hennessy sponsors the New Irish Writing competition in the Irish Independent, and the associated annual Hennessy Literary Award, that has launched such Irish writers as Joseph O'Connor, Dermot Bolger, Patrick McCabe, Colum McCann, Frank McGuinness, Anne Enright, Hugo Hamilton, Dermot Healy and Neil Jordan.

In popular culture

Hennessy is mentioned in hundreds of hip-hop and pop songs, including "KC Tea" by Tech N9ne, "Hennessey" by 2Pac, "Hennesey n Buddah" by Snoop Dogg, and "Love Scars" by Trippie Redd, "Boombayah" by Korean girl group Blackpink, Digital Underground's "The Humpty Dance", "Pass Me Da Green" by Master P, "Moodz" by Blackbear, and the Jenny Lewis song "Red Bull & Hennessy".
The cognac was notably mentioned in the chorus of the Drake single "One Dance", which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Notable consumers

Hennessy was the favorite drink of Kim Jong-il, dictator of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Hennessy once reported that Kim spent over $700,000 a year on Paradis cognac.