In early 1973 I was working on a magazine in Mankato, Minnesota and applying to graduate school to get a Masters Degree in Philosophy or to head out of the US to work as a Peace Corps volunteer teacher. I was still living in St. Peter, Minnesota where I had been for five years attending Gustavus Adolphus College and working after graduation. My landlord was Folke Person another Gustavus alumnus like myself who had remained in St. Peter teaching, studying and contributing to the social fabric. Folke had purchased a former English professor's house on Pine Street and I had the upstairs suite of a couple rooms, a bath and cubbyhole of a kitchen. It was a cozy arrangement. We shared a few friends, all more or less associated with Gustavus, including Mark Ahlstrom whose Gothic house on 3rd street remains an icon of St. Peter's glory days in the 19th century. There were many soirees with Folke, Mark and others in the house on Pine, at Mark's or out at the Holiday House in Kasota run by Jim Martell.
From Folke I learned the taste of good cognac.
Folke had grown up on New York and had a different background than us Minnesota kids. He had lived in a city of great proportion and cultural depth, but he had also gone to college right there in St. Peter and fit in very comfortably with the Swedes and Norwegians, the hunters and fishermen, and the academics. He played opera on his record player, we concocted flaming pots of glogg in the midst of winter, visitors came from all over the US adding more diversity to the Vietnam-era entrepot we occupied.
Folke came back from a trip to New York late in the spring with a bottle of Hine cognac. I was readying to go to Korea as a Peace Corps volunteer and we sat and talked in our usual free wheeling fashion many a night with Folke sparingly sharing that treasured bottle of Hine with me. You couldn't buy Hine in the liquor shops of St. Peter, and there probably wasn't any XO or better available either. Southern Minnesotans drank brandy in cocktails, but sipping fine champagne cognac was not on the cards.
I never forgot Folke's reverence for that bottle of Hine and I have religiously sought the holy Hine myself on my international travels. It is a rare find in any duty free liquor shop and I gladly pay whatever price when I do find it. It is better than the VSOP Remy and Courvoisiers of the world. And I do not see much need to go to the XO or higher levels, when it is only me who wants to savour this fine liquor.
I finished my last drop of Hine a month ago and have been looking for Hine again. Since the beginning of the year I have passed through the international airports in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney and Manila. No Hine.
But in the last airport I pausesd to look closer. There were the usual brands and prices, but a handsome bottle attracted my attention. It was a one litre bottle of a single vineyard VSOP and priced at a mere $42. It is a Grand Champagne of Cognac and labeled Premier Grand Cru. Wow! I said to myself. What have I found? I bought a bottle and went off to the JAL lounge to get on the internet and check it out. It's quire a story. The Frapin legacy goes back to the 13th Century. They have hundreds of hectares of their own vines and produce a full range of cognacs solely from their own grapes. When I finally tried my new find back home in Tokyo I was amazed at how smooth it is, yet subtly carrying the strength of the eau de vie straight through.
I don't know what I will do now. If I see a bottle of Hine somewhere, I'll probably buy it. And I will now seek the best way to obtain a steady supply of Frapin VSOP as well.
