Unless you’re a connoisseur of cognac or have had a lot of experience drinking it in the past, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a bottle of the real stuff, versus the cheap stuff that someone is trying to pass off as an expensive bottle of the drink. Well it seems that cognac maker Rémy Martin doesn’t want its name tarnished, so much so that they have decided to embed an NFC chip inside of its bottle to help its customers identify if they are indeed purchasing the real deal.
The chip itself will be placed inside the cap of the bottle which according to the company, will allow the user to scan it with their phone since it is closer to the surface. From there the app will be able to tell the person if the bottle they bought is the real deal. In fact there is a mechanism inside that trips when the bottle is opened, so that the customer knows what the bottle has been opened before and that the drink could have been tampered with.
So what’s with all the security? Well just like whiskies and wine, cognac is a drink that is sold in different ages. The more older the cognac, the more expensive it is. Some makers who can’t afford to wait will age their cognac for a few years and add some caramel coloring to give it the cognac look. Rémy Martin on the other hand prides itself in its aging process which takes 10-37 years, so by including this technology inside their bottles, you will know that the bottle you just paid a few hundred dollars for is real.
The NFC Rémy Martin cognac is expected to launch in China this fall, but no word on if and when this particular model will make its way to other parts of the world.
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