Otard

, a brand of cognac brandy founded by Baron Jean-Baptiste Otard (1763–1824) and Jean Dupuy (1756–1831) in 1794, as Otard, Dupuy et Cie. Otard’s father was a negociant, who sold his brandy to Augiers and Hennessy. The Dupuys were exporters, among the first to trade with the independent United States. In 1795, Otard purchased the Chateau de Cognac, in the Grand Champagne, and converted it into his warehouse. Within ten years, Otard Dupuy was the third largest cognac house, after Hennessy and Martell. See cognac.

In 1807, Otard Dupuy became the first cognac to be mentioned by name in an advertisement, and prior to 1870, their brandy was advertised more often than all the competition combined. The earliest notices came from the American South, where by the 1830s Otard had become practically synonymous with cognac, and would have been included in the more high-class juleps and Brandy Punches of that time. See julep, punch. Otard was a topic in two novels by Herman Melville and another cowritten by Mark Twain, and it was mentioned in many other works and memoirs by minor authors. In American and Other Drinks (1878), London bartender Leo Engel called for it in his recipe for Crimean Cup. See Engel, Leo.

Otard’s success ended with the phylloxera epidemic, and by 1871, they represented an increasingly distant third place in terms of total exports, with less than 5 percent of the market. The decline in sales continued until Otard was sold in 1930 to the de Ramefort family, who were able to revive the brand from obscurity, succeeding especially in the 1950s. Around the mid-1960s, Otard began to abandon its export business and focus on the European market, where they remain today as a respected brand, Baron Otard, and have some high-end offerings.

Cullen, L. M. The Brandy Trade under the Ancien Régime. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Faith, Nicholas. Cognac. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2004.

Ministère de la Culture, Archives Nationales. Dossier LH/2025/19. http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/LH/LH174/PG/FRDAFAN83OL2025019V003.htm (accessed March 29, 2021).

Robert, A., G. Cougny, and E. Bourloton. Dictionnaire des parlementaires français . Paris: Bourloton, 1891.

By: Doug Stailey