Confessions of an Anti-Influencer
Case in point: Look how at how effective my advocacy of Cognac has been.
Several years ago, I read a New York Times article that asked, “Are You an Anti-Influencer?” Apparently, based on a study of purchasing patterns at a national convenience store chain, some consumers are drawn over and over to unpopular products—Crystal Pepsi, Watermelon Oreos, Frito-Lay Lemonade, and Cheetos Lip Balm were given as examples.
“We looked in the data and saw there were some customers who were really good at picking out failures,” said one of the study’s authors, economist Catherine Tucker of MIT. Researchers called these people “harbingers of failure.” Further, they found that these harbingers cluster in similar ZIP codes (“water seeking its own level”) and even regularly donated money to political candidates who ended up losing their races. Unsurprisingly, property values in ZIP codes with lots of harbingers of failure consistently under perform the broader real-estate market.
“I think what we’re picking up on is that there are just some people who, for whatever reason, have consistently non-majority tastes,” said Tucker. “They like that odd house. That political candidate everyone else finds off-putting. They like Watermelon Oreos.”
After reading that, I suddenly felt seen—as if my entire personal and professional life was being explained to me. Maybe I am on a completely different wavelength than other consumers. I’ve spent years extolling the virtues of less popular wines and spirits. I’ve written one book on obscure booze, another about grape varieties you’ve never heard of, and finally a book about cider—which is always about to have a moment, but never does. If it confuses you or you can’t pronounce it or it’s a hopeless underdog, I’m all over it.
I’ve been thinking about my role as a “harbinger of failure” as I’ve been reading about the sad plight of Cognac. As anyone who reads this newsletter knows: No one loves brandy in general—and Cognac in particular—more than me. Few drinks writers devote more of their intellectual energy to Cognac than I do.
At the end of last year, I begged the question: “Will 2025 (Finally) Be Brandy’s Year?”
Well, I think we are getting the answer. In August, Reuters reported that Cognac sales (particularly premium Cognac sales) have declined by 13 percent. In July, Spirits Business published a piece entitled “Why Cognac is stuck in limbo land,” which noted that all of Cognac’s top brands were showing big losses this past year: Hennessy’s sales fell 14 percent; Martell plunged by 25 percent; Rémy Cointreau (owner of Rémy Martin) reported a 19 percent drop. The past two years for Rémy Cointreau has been nightmarish, with with nearly 40 percent of its revenue vanishing between 2023 and 2025.
And that’s just the big guys. As readers know, I’ve been advocating for smaller family producers and negociants for years. For me, labels like Pasquet, Grosperrin, Fanny Fougerat, Jean Fillioux, Remi Landier, Navarre, Vallein Tercinier, and others are where the real quality and energy of the region lie. But as the big Cognac companies struggle, the effects ripple through the entire ecosystem of 4,000 vine growers and hundreds of small producers.
Cognac’s situation in the U.S. market is especially dire. The four biggest brands account for about 90 percent of the Cognac consumed in the U.S., with Hennessy alone accounting for 60 percent. Meanwhile, the smaller artisan brands I write about have struggled mightily to gain traction. So if the big brands keep failing, Cognac will ultimately disappear from the American mindspace.
For those of us who remember how popular Cognac was 10 or 15 years ago, it’s hard to believe Cognac’s fall. Think, for instance, about how ubiquitous Hennessy and Courvoisier was in late 1990s and early 2000s hip-hop culture, with artists like Tupac, Busta Rhymes, and Jay-Z frequently referencing Cognac in their lyrics. But obviously culture changes.
At the end of 2024, Nicolas Palazzi, the founder of PM Spirits and one of Cognac’s biggest advocates in the U.S. posted this on LinkedIn: “I think that Cognac in the U.S. is in a dire spot.” Given that PM Spirits imports one of the finest French brandy portfolios in the U.S., that felt rather alarming. Palazzi explained his reasons:
- there are very little Cognac-based cocktails on drink menu and even less people ordering them when they exist.
- the neat Cognac drinker seems extinct
- the market for non-mega-brands is made of a very limited amount of enthusiasts, most of which coming from a whiskey background.
“In a word, Cognac has lost its cool factor,” Palazzi continued. “Sure Cognac still retains a strong image, but it has grown disconnected from who the drinker is and what she is looking for. Is there a future for a ‘Cognac category’ in the U.S.? Maybe, but it will be extremely hard to get messages to sound relatable to the potential consumer.”
Palazzi said that Cognac today reminds him of Bordeaux in the 2010s:
What was referred to as the ‘Bordeaux market’ was a lot less solid than one thought. Those top estates had true brand power but the rest of the appellation had lost its allure. Turns out Cheval had been selling ‘Cheval,’ not ‘Bordeaux.’ 15 years later, Bordeaux as an appellation has lost its appeal but a few cool winemakers who make good wines & happen to be located in the region have developed a following.
I wouldn’t be so rude as to suggest that Palazzi is an anti-influencer like me. And certainly, when I’ve published his pessimistic views of the U.S. Cognac market in the past, I’ve inevitably gotten emails from other brandy importers vehemently disagreeing.
But anyone observing the trends can see that Cognac risks sliding into obscurity and irrelevance in a U.S. spirits market increasingly dominated by whiskey, mezcal, and gin—not to mention hard seltzers, hard ice teas, and canned vodka cocktails.
Would love to hear your take on Cognac’s place in the world of spirits, circa 2025.
Well I guess that I am a dinosaur. I like cognac, and (since I read your post about it) I like Armagnac. I love Calvados, and I also like Spanish brandies like Carlos Primera and Cardinal Mendoza. I only drink them neat. There is nothing better at the end of the evening, when dinner and dessert are finished and there are only dregs in the red wine bottle and you cannot bear to open another bottle but...you want a drink. The Germans call it the "Absacker," the last drink of the night before you collapse into bed, happy and satisfied and at peace with yourself. A good practice, it works with Eau de Vie from Alsace or Schnapps from the Black Forest, too, and one that should be embraced by all who just want a little bit more, but not too much.
Great piece, Jason. Thinking about Cognac from my point of view as a tour operator, the difficulty of persuading people to visit the Charentes kind of parallels the difficulty of getting people to drink Cognac. It’s right there, adjacent to Bordeaux, and yet . . . it’s just not in their consciousness.
It’s a shame because as you say, there are so many small, artisanal producers to visit and the history of the spirit is fascinating. You can even nerd out on varietal Pineau des Charentes. I mean c’mon people!
But it’s not just Americans who aren’t drinking it. The French aren’t really drinking it anymore either. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. The big houses have visitors’ centers/tasting rooms that cost just silly money to operate. Even for these luxury brands, one wonders how long they can pour money into them if the world just isn’t drinking it.