Hennessy Master Blender series arrives in the Memphis market

“We don’t tell Yann what to do. Yann tells us what to do.”

Jordan Bushell, Hennessy’s head of mixology and education, is sitting in a glassed-in conference room at Bloomberg in New York, batting away the suggestion that executives could dictate product development to its seventh-generation master blender, Yann Fillioux.
“We had asked him for different things, and he kind of said, ‘All right, here’s the blend of the moment.’”

And that blend is Hennessy Master Blender’s Selection No. 1, a brand-new cognac expression that will be officially announced Oct. 24.
Master Blender’s Selection No.1 (MBS) was one of the most interesting new spirits I tasted this summer at the booze industry convention, Tales of the Cocktail—an unctuous, slightly sweet, slightly over-proof, single-batch blend of 80 to 100 eau de vie, aged up to 16 years in two- to four-year-old Limousin oak. It was interesting, not so much for what it was (or because I was the 29th person in the world to taste it), but more for what it seemed to be attempting.
My first thought on seeing the square bottle with hand-lettered retro label: “That looks like a bourbon.” My second thought on tasting the liquid: “This tastes like a bourbon.” My third thought: “I could get into this.”

To read the full article visit Hennessy Releases a New Bourbon-Like Spirit to Win Over Whiskey Lovers