Our people have been passing the Kovasi A for generations, but this brown

liquor's legacy goes beyond rat lyrics. Konyak found a home in black culture for

one terrible reason. This is two-minute black history, what you didn't learn in

school. No matter the occasion, our people have been clinking glasses of

Konyak for centuries, but the reason is deeper than many realize.

References to the spirit appeared in the early 2000s rat lyrics with hits like

Buster Rhymes, Pasta Kovasi A. At the same time, Hennessy began cementing its

decades-long relationship with the culture.

Our love of Konyak began when black soldiers stationed in Southwest France

were introduced to it during both world wars. On France's liberation day,

farmers would give every soldier a bottle. The sweet sounds of jazz and blues

squirreled parisian clubs alongside Konyak and beloved performers like Josephine

Baker, but there's another reason it won us over. The soldiers were in

Europe enjoying Konyak and feeling freer than they ever had been back home.

Meanwhile, the US spirits industry was heavily marketing whiskey. Despite our

pioneering whiskey making, liquor companies popularized it by appealing to

white nationalism, often using black caricatures in their ads while

brutalizing and lynching us in the streets. Things weren't adding up for the

soldiers who shed blood for a country that couldn't care less about them, so when

they returned, they kept sipping Konyak and passing it on generation after

generation. Don't get it twisted though. These corporations don't love us.

We've always created the cool, so they exploit us and profit big. They

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