I’m afraid I left you hanging.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my efforts to try Louis XIII, which is reputed to be the world’s finest and most expensive cognac. A few liquors actually do cost more, but that is only because their bottles are made of laser beams, or something.
Louis Treize, as it is colloquially known, is so fine and so expensive because it is made up of 1,200 different eaux-de-vie — fruit brandies — some of them up to 100 years old.
How expensive? A bottle costs $4,500, if you can find one. A single drink costs anywhere from $250 to $800.
In my previous column about it, I wrote that although I very much wanted to try the best of the best — even though I don’t actually like cognac — I decided not to pull the trigger on spending that much money. My last line was “knowing me, I’d probably spill it.”
And then, a few days later, I attached an update to the column, which had not yet run. I said that I found a restaurant in Chicago, Shaw’s Crab House, that sells a half-ounce — a tablespoon — for $100. So I got it. And then, after a single, tiny sip, I knocked over the glass and spilled it.
And now, the rest of the story.
My column ended there, because it made a good story. But in fact, I went to the restaurant’s exceedingly kind manager, Dylan, and told him what had happened.
He said, “We don’t want anyone to go home unhappy,” and he poured me another drink.
Which I didn’t love. It tasted kind of harsh to me, and sharp. The harshness, in fact, obliterated what people who love Louis XIII say are its 250 different discernible flavors.
I guess I don’t like cognac even when it is exquisite. It must be an acquired taste that I can’t afford to acquire.
Reaction to my column was mostly uncertain about whether to believe me or not. I have been known to exaggerate for humorous effect in my columns, although it’s always obvious when I do so, I think. The thing about bottles being costly because they are made out of laser beams was an exaggeration, what my father would call the “artistic truth.”
In actual fact, some liquors are ludicrously expensive because their bottles have nearly 7,000 diamonds on them. That fact is true, but I’d argue it isn’t as funny as laser beams.
Some readers wrote or called to tell me about their own experiences with Louis XIII. And I should mention that the waiter at the restaurant, trying to ease my embarrassment, told me about the time he saw a man drop and break an entire bottle of the stuff.
One man called to tell me about the late Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood who lived, the caller said, in the Chase Park Plaza apartments (apparently, he actually lived a few blocks away in the Executive House apartments on West Pine, though he may have moved to the Chase Park Plaza).
Every night before he went to bed, the caller said, Flood would go to the hotel bar and have a drink of Louis XIII. When Flood moved to the island of Majorca, off the coast of Spain, the caller said he brought several bottles of it with him.
The best call of all came from a 94-year-old reader I will call Mrs. A (St. Louisans would recognize the name; she and her husband ran a well-known business in town).
Mrs. A bought her late husband a bottle of Louis XIII for his 62nd birthday. The husband enjoyed fine liquors and savored this bottle. At the time of his death, 11 years ago, there was still at least of cup of the liqueur in it. Maybe a cup and a half.
Mrs. A plans to live until she is 105 — and the way she looks and feels now, she’ll easily make it — but she is at a stage in her life when she wants to give away her prized possessions to people she knows will appreciate them. She read my column and knew that I would cherish and appreciate the bottle with the remaining Louis XIII in it.
Would I ever.
I dashed off to her condo and met the woman who turns out to be as sweet as she is generous. We had a nice visit, and then she gave me the bottle — which I strapped in to my car seat and drove home very carefully. I didn’t want to spill it, because that would be ridiculous. Who does that kind of thing?
I uncorked the stopper and poured out a glass. It was a small glass, but it was more than the half-ounce I’d had in Chicago. It had occurred to me, even before receiving this gift, that the reason I didn’t like my first taste was that I was trying to make it last by drinking it drop by drop. Perhaps, I thought, I needed to try enough at least to coat my tongue.
So I took larger sips this time, and enjoyed it much more. It still felt a little harsh at first, but later sips smoothed that out. I’m afraid it is a taste I can easily acquire.
Meanwhile, there is the glass. After I finished my drink, I inhaled the aroma of the glass. It smelled of the richest caramel and the sweetest maple syrup. That aroma stayed in the glass for hours and hours.
It was absolutely stunning. If the liqueur ever tastes as good to me as it smells, then I will understand what makes it so prized.
