cognac #2 "Mon petit trésor" (autour de 1913) - Malternative Belgium - 40,5%

Le blog à Roger, https://leblogaroger.eu, 04/08/2020
Color: Orange gold
Nose: Fruity at first with a lot of apples, apricots, plums, grapes, citrus fruits as well as a fine woody note in the form of smoke, undergrowth, old oak and a light tobacco.
The nose is strangely lively for a small 40%, the spirit has nevertheless undergone a natural reduction during 107 years, it’s not nothing! But it does not seem to have lost its initial pep.Over time, the wax from old furniture, the polish and honey complete this nose, very fruity and fresh for such an old juice … astonishing but really very beautiful!
Palate: Rather light, on more herbaceous and floral notes, the fruits seem to be more indented to then let the aging of this spirit express itself.
The notes of undergrowth, tea, tobacco, wax, freshly cut herbs are here more expressive and apart from an orange side, there are significantly less fruity traces.
The finish is medium, leaving us on a woody bitterness, slightly roasted and on a grapeseed side.
Conclusion: What to say in front of such a monument … to taste the fruit of the work of a complete stranger, more than a century after this one, is always something particularly strange. Sitting comfortably in my living room, the gap between my comfort of tasting and his working or living conditions must be quite striking 🙂 Beyond all these considerations, this Cognac is really very good even if I find that the 1925 version was more to my taste. The palate may be too marked by the barrel, without it becoming a wood juice. Just that the very exotic fruitiness of the previous one pleased me much more. Question of tastes shall we say.
Score: 89/100

Serge Valentin, www.whiskyfun.com, 26/07/2020:

The Belgians! They drink our best Champagnes and quaff our best Cognacs, mind you, which we cheap Frenchies always forget to do ourselves. Where do we write to complain? Brussels? Joking, we just love them. By the way, this old Borderies was transferred to demijohns in 1981, so technically it is, very, very roughly, a 70 years old. Colour: full gold. Nose: before world war one, imagine! By the way, should you like to listen to some splendid selections of old music from all over the world, you may check this extraordinary website called radiooooo.com. Listening to some +/-1910 French chansons while trying this baby just adds another dimension. Old-style melon liqueur, overripe apples, quinces, yellow and white flowers (honeysuckle!), light acacia honey, a touch of mushroom, a whiff of wood smoke, and a good glass of very old Meursault, how does that sound? It’s pretty light, subtle, certainly complex, and perhaps a tad fragile but only the palate will tell. Let’s proceed… Mouth: indeed it is soft, a little light, pretty floral yet again, and rather all on herbal teas, from the usual chamomile to orange blossom and just green earl grey. Some tiny notes of bergamots and kumquats after that, drops of moderately liqueur-y sweet wines (say late-harvest riesling), then touches of old herbal liqueurs that were all the rage when this was distilled, absinth/wormwood, verbena, mullein, then a little turpentine and angelica. It remains a little fragile all along but would just never hunker down. Like all those men and boys who were about to be send to the trenches. Finish: not very long, but still fresh, herbal, and fruity. This is life, till the end. Comments: it is moving, really. The people who distilled this lovely juice probably died in the following years. From a bullet, a piece of shrapnel, gas, typhus, or from the Spanish flu epidemic. Keep wearing your masks if you’re not an idiot – but I believe very few idiots read Whiskyfun anyway (bragging a little bit, I know). Very lovely and delicate old Cognac.
SGP:441 - 91 points.

Ruben Luyten, www.whiskynotes.be, 01/07/2020:

Nose: even though I don’t have the first release to compare directly, it is certainly the same style. Very elegant, very fresh and floral, with the typical fragrant apricots, orange peel, and quinces, mixed with mint and dried flowers. Golden raisins. Verbena. Orange blossom. Soft hints of cedar and tobacco.
Mouth: tobacco and mint again, then eucalyptus and herbal tea. Oranges, peaches, greengages and mirabelles. Just a little pink grapefruit, but this is slightly less tropical than the first. The oak feels a little towards the end, with some resinous notes. Impressive freshness overall, just imagine this was made over 100 years ago!
Finish: quite long, on herbal teas, citrus peel, mint and wood resin.
Another excellent fresh cognac from this house. I may prefer the first release by a small margin, but this is another collector’s item that is even more drinkable and even more delicate.