This post is about Yerevan Brandy Company producing famous Ararat brandy.
During my latest trip to Yerevan (Armenia) I had a free time and I decided to to visit Yerevan Brandy Factory. So, we just walked there by foot, and huge was our surprise when the girl at reception informed that tours can be arranged only by calling before - that's lame. But OK, if you are planing to make an indie trip to Yerevan Brandy Factory - make sure you contact them prior or you will be left with the same we got - wandering around at a small brandy kiosk at entrance, instead of taking a tour inside factory, observing all those oak barrels or even tasting brandy.
Ararat - Yerevan brandy company
Yerevan Brandy Company (YBC) is the leading enterprise of Armenia for the production of alcoholic beverages. Its main brand name is Ararat. Currently the company boasts a large following, particularly in Russia, as well as in Ukraine and Belarus. The Russian market accounts for about 85% of exports.YBC is owned and operated by the French giant Pernod Ricard.
Lada Niva with Ararat logo
Yerevan Brandy Company was founded in 1887 by a wealthy 1st guild merchant Nerses Tairyants with the help of his cousin Vasily Tayrov. Tairyants began distilling brandy at the winery he had founded ten years earlier inside the former fortress of Yerevan. The enterprise reached its hey-day in 1898, when it was acquired by Nikolay Shustov, a well-known Russian vodka and liqueur producer. Shustov's company, Shustov and Sons were appointed as the supplier of His Imperial Majesty’s court. During the International Exhibition in Paris in 1900, the brandy received the Grand-Prix and the legal right to be called ‘cognac’, not ‘brandy’, following a blind degustation.
In 1948, in connection with the reorganization of the Yerevan Wine & Brandy Factory (known until 1940 as the Shustov Factory), the factory building was separated into the Yerevan Wine Factory and the Yerevan Brandy Factory. The independent history of the plant began in 1953 when a new building was constructed specifically for the production of brandy. The new building stands on a high plateau at the other end of the Victory Bridge in Yerevan, opposite to the Yerevan Wine Factory. With its nine austere arches, and long flight of steps leading to it, the building is hailed as one of the best architectural examples of the Soviet period in Yerevan.
In June 1998, the YBC was sold by the Government of Armenia to French distiller Pernod Ricard for $30 million, after competitive bidding organized by Admiralty Investment Group of New Zealand and Merrill
Lynch International of London. Among the famous admirers of Armenian brandy were Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie and Frank Sinatra.
Small kiosk with Ararat brandy inside
Learn more (and arnage your tour) at: http://araratbrandy.com/