St-Rémy au café: take a brandy with your brunch

French brandy favourite, St-Rémy has announced a new global campaign to showcase the versatility of its hero product, St-Rémy XO. Responding to global trends in cocktails and mixology, St-Rémy hopes to inspire new consumption with its latest strategy: St-Rémy Café.

According to internal research by Rémy-Cointreau, coffee is the second highest trending cocktail flavour in the world. St-Rémy Café utilises the global trend towards coffee and cold brew - the process of brewing which involves immersing ground coffee in cold or room temperature water and leaving to infuse anywhere between 12 to 24 hours - to introduce both the coffee enthusiast and brandy drinker to new, and invigorating ways to experience St-Rémy. The strategy has been designed with the at home consumer and on-premise in mind.

St-Rémy says the brandy category is facing an ageing crisis: its consumer base growing older, and there is not a corresponding uptake among younger drinkers. The company intends to rejuvenate the category via new product development, including St-Rémy Signature, a new blend designed specifically for cocktails and mixing.

Hervé Buzon, St-Rémy Global Brand Director, says: “As the leader of the French brandy category we know the responsibility St-Rémy has to drive the category forward”.

St-Rémy has created a strategy to meet its three core objectives: expanding drinking occasions, rejuvenating brand perception and recruiting new consumers through on-trade availability.

St-Rémy's XO Cold Brew, is made by combining 45ml St-Rémy XO, 120ml Cold Brew and 30ml Vanilla Syrup in an ice-filled glass and stirred. It is a smart new take on the espresso martini.

Other cold and warm cocktail options have also been created to suit every taste, and the St-Rémy XO coffee cocktails can be adapted to the season, the time, and the occasion. The range also includes the XO Iced Latte and XO Mocha which can be created as warm and iced serves, as well as the XO Coffee made from just St-Rémy XO, Black Coffee and Simple Syrup.

St-Rémy says the Café range is attractive for on-trade given the low-cost serves with coffee providing a natural flavour base on which to build serves; accessible, easy-to-produce and not tied to specific seasonality.

Mr Buzon says, "The on-trade represents an area of huge growth for St-Rémy. We have worked with international bartenders to understand the pinch point for a modern bar: margins, consumer trends and speed. With St-Rémy Café, we believe we are providing an attractive option.”

St-Rémy Café is also intended to bring versatility to the category: suitable for the evening as well as at the start of the day for brunch menus.

St-Rémy says that brunch is a trend that will only continue to grow in the on-trade, having seen a great start to their recent St-Rémy Café trial in Canada.

Mr Buzon said: "After trialling the St-Rémy Café strategy in Canada last year and seeing the positive results, we decided to make it a global strategy. The feedback from many accounts has been very positive, St-Rémy XO Cold Brew quickly becoming their best seller, prompting us to develop the strategy further and share it worldwide."