10 years is the minimum ageing requirements for a cognac to be labelled as an XO. In practice, the cognac in the bottle will be the creation of a house’s master blender, bringing together many cognacs from different parcels, casks and ages to create a harmonious, consistent and delicious product.

That means that in some cases, like with Braastad, not only is the age of the youngest spirit in excess of 10 years old, but the average age is also much older. Other producers like Rémy Martin have to create huge volumes of a consistent product and using older cognac can be something of a hedge. While Tesseron have long had a reputation for releasing XO’s that are qualified by a Lot number indicating a year like their XO Perfection Lot 53 from 1953.