Yerevan brandy factory
When visiting the Armenian capital, you should definitely visit the Yerevan Brandy Factory. The building is built of pink tuff of various shades, which is traditional for these places.
History
It seems that there is no more traditional drink for Armenia than Ararat brandy. And this is actually the case. The cognac factory appeared in Yerevan at the end of the 19th century in 1894, and a few years later it was bought by an enterprising merchant Nikolai Leonidovich Shustov. It was he who actively contributed to the popularization of the local fortified drink. In 1900, Armenian cognac was presented at the World's Fair in Paris and received a gold medal and worldwide recognition there. It was the beginning of a brilliant path, and the very first significant award, and there were a lot of them later.
Shustov came up with the idea of conducting a kind of "promotions". He hired students from theater schools, and they went to large drinking establishments and caused loud scandals if there was no Ararat brandy available. Bublika was interested, the owners of the pubs ordered a drink at the factory.
There is also a story related to Dvin cognac and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Allegedly, a case of cognac was sent to him from a factory in Armenia on a regular basis. One day it seemed to him that the taste of the drink had changed and he was not too lazy to write about it to Stalin himself. In just a few days, the chief technologist was declared an "enemy of the people" and sent to prison. But after that, he returned to his workplace, and his taste returned to cognac. There is no evidence for this legend. Only the excellent taste of cognac.
At the end of the 20th century, the Ararat Brandy Factory in Yerevan was privatized by a French company, and much has changed since that time. But the fundamentals of production have been preserved to this day.
