Hennessy XO Frank Gehry

Jas Hennessy & Co., commonly known simply as Hennessy, is a French cognac distiller with its headquarters located in Cognac, France. The Hennessy cognac distillery was founded by Irish Jacobite military officer Richard Hennessy in 1765. His son James Hennessy gave the company its name Jas Hennessy & Co in 1813. During the 1970s, Kilian Hennessy, a fifth-generation direct descendant of Hennessy, became the CEO of Hennessy, succeeding his first cousin Maurice-Richard. Kilian Hennessy spearheaded the company's 1971 merger with Moët & Chandon, which created Moët Hennessy. Moët Hennessy merged with Louis Vuitton in 1987, creating one of the world's largest luxury brand conglomerates, Louis Vuitton • Moët-Hennessy or LVMH. In 1988, a management crisis led to the group's takeover by Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault, owner of the haute couture house Christian Dior. The company is now owned by LVMH (66%) and Diageo (34%). Jas Hennessy & Co. sells about 50 million bottles a year worldwide, making it the largest cognac producer, supplying more than 40% of the world's cognac, a variety of brandy.