Louis! Louis!

A couple of years ago my wife and I took a 17-day cruise to Hawaii. It wasn't perfect (though it was damn close!), no cruise ever is, but one of the things we could not complain about was the company; my ex-boss, Shawn and his partner Brian went with us. Shawn and I shared an elevator one day at work and he asked where I was going for lunch. This just happened to be the day I was going to AAA to pay for our cruise and I told him so. He went with me (we work about 200 feet from an AAA office) and ended up signing up for the same cruise that day.

On the cruise we all shared a table at first seating dinner and Shawn and Brian had brought on board a case of wine from their wine cellar. Each night they brought a bottle to the table and we all partook. I think we must have drank about $1,200 worth of their wine.

Ah, cruising and drinking, this is what brings me to Louis; Louis XIII that is; Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac to be exact. I know little about cognac, but I knew of Louis XIII. It cost about $1,200 a bottle, and what a bottle, a beautiful Baccarat crystal decanter. If you don't care about the cognac you can bid on one of the empty bottles on ebay for anywhere from $150 to $250. It ends up Brian has always wanted a Louis bottle and Shawn had always wanted to drink Louis. It also ends up that they sold Louis XIII on the ship. In the gift shop it was $900 a bottle, in the bar it was $90 a shot.

Early on we found out that the person who drinks the last shot gets to keep the bottle and that the one open bottle on the ship had about seven shots left in it. Ends up our last night on the ship was Shawn's birthday. The pieces were in motion, the cards were being dealt. Things were coming together.

For Shawn's birthday we made reservations in the Pinnacle Grill restaurant on the ship. We had eaten their once before and the food was amazing. What we needed was a gift for Shawn, for his birthday for sure, but also to in some way pay for the wonderful bounty of wine they shared with us each night (one night they were not going to make it to dinner and had a bottle of wine sent to our room so that we would not have to go without at dinner). My wife and I decided that if the Louis had four or less shots, that we would buy them all and give the bottle to Shawn.

A great plan, but the day before Shawn's birthday we asked how the bottle of Louis was doing and were told it still had seven shots in it. $630 was a little more than we wanted to spend on Shawn's birthday, so we decided to at least buy Shawn a shot of Louis for his birthday and set it up with the Pinnacle for the bottle to be there waiting for us.

The morning of Shawn's birthday I was passing by the Ocean Bar (this was the bar that we mostly hung out in because the bar waiters were just really great there) when one of the waiters, Jay, called out to me, "Did you hear what Shawn did last night?"

"No, what," I asked?

"He bought the Louis. Ends up by last night there were only three shots left, so he said he would buy them all. Ended up only being two shots, so he bought the bottle for $180."

Great news for Shawn, but not for us; our birthday gift was now blown. We improvised though and bought a bottle of Dom Pérignon 1993 champagne. We actually got a good deal on the bottle by getting it at the bar and bringing it to the restaurant. Now, I've had Dom Pérignon before and thought it was very overpriced wine, but I have to say, this was the best champagne I ever tasted. It was velvety smooth, crisp and clean, everything champagne should be, and made a great beginning to our dinner that night.

As for the Louis XIII bottle, Shawn's plan was to display it in his bar at home, filling it with a less expensive cognac and just "pretending" it is Louis. He also said the same thing we had heard from person after person about Louis, for the price it doesn't taste that much better than regular cognac. I had some a year later on another cruise and I would have to agree.

But it does come in a really beautiful bottle.