The Founder

The house of J. Ferd. Nagel was not founded as a Cognac house. It was founded as a spirit house — the largest in Hamburg, one of the most significant in Northern Europe. The Cognac is what the house became capable of when everything else had been built.

Jakob Ferdinand Nagel founded his house in Hamburg in 1852. By the 1870s, he employed more than 550 workers and moved over 23 million litres of spirit annually through the Hamburg port — the gateway to markets across Europe, Africa, and beyond. His primary product was Genever: the Dutch-heritage spirit that was the precursor to modern gin and the defining export spirit of the Northern European trade.

At the Vienna World Exhibition of 1873, the J. Ferd. Nagel Genever took the highest medal in its class. In recognition of the honour, Nagel pressed a three-faced bottle — one face bearing the Emperor's portrait in relief, one bearing the inscription 'HIGHEST MEDAL VIENNA 1873', and one carrying the name J. FERD. NAGEL — and dedicated the edition to Emperor Franz Joseph.

Then, as his legend has it, he withdrew. Not from failure — from completion. The port, the warehouses, the medals, the markets: he had built what he intended to build. He left for the Black Forest. He distilled in silence. He made what is now called TANNENBLUT — the blood of the fir tree — and disappeared into the forest and its legend.

The house he left behind carried his name. The Cognac carries his standard.