The Brandy Trade under the Ancien Régime: Regional Specialisation in the Charente

by L. M. Cullen

Overview

This study of the brandy trade explores the origins, production and marketing of brandy from the Cognac region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Professor Cullen shows that the brandy trade was based on a sophisticated regional economy, which, by 1720, had become a key component of French involvement in the modern international trading system. Notwithstanding competition from a surplus in other cereals and from foreign markets, regional specialization in the Charente was an indispensable element in ensuring the quality of stable output, and was recognized in the region's success in attracting foreign houses, such as Martell and Hennessy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521592482
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/28/1998
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.91(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Abbreviations; Glossary; 1. The emergence of brandy spirits; 2. Brandy and the French economy; 3. Brandy: the distilling process, the product and the industry; 4. Brandy production and internal trade in France; 5. Competing markets: Parisian and foreign demand; 6. The merchants of the brandy regions; 7. The Cognac brandy trade: 1720s–60s; 8. External challenge in the 1760s: vicissitudes of old and new houses 1762–78; 9. Brandy business in Bordeaux and Cognac in the 1780s; Sources; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"...a finely crafted monograph on an important topic." Thomas J. Schaeper, American Historical Review

"...fascinating study of the brandy trade....The material is enormously rich....this is a thoughtful book about an important topic. This book makes a real contribution to the subject." Thomas Brennan, Journal of Modern History

From the Publisher