St-Rémy Brandy leads the charge for category rejuvenation with new global drink strategy :
St-Rémy Café

St-Rémy, the world’s favourite French brandy, 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 2nd most trending cocktail flavour around 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-trade premises in mind, and from concept to fruition, it has been aligned with St-Rémy’s overall brand promise; to provide moments of contentment.

St-Rémy understands the challenges posed to the brandy category : consumer base becoming older, and lack of desirability for younger drinkers. The company seeks to bolster its commitment to category rejuvenation, following new product development which includes St-Rémy Signature, a new blend designed specifically for cocktails and mixing. Hervé Buzon, St-Rémy Global Brand Director, notes: “as the leader of the French brandy category we know the responsibility St-Rémy has to drive the category forward”. 

Introducing, St-Rémy new hero drink, the XO Cold Brew, a novel cocktail, simply made by combining 45ml St-Rémy XO, 120ml Cold Brew and 30ml Vanilla Syrup in an ice-filled glass and stirred.

Other cold and warm options have also been created to suit every taste, and the different variations of 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 Café focuses on low-cost serves to encourage on-trade account pick up, with coffee providing a natural flavour base on which to build serves; accessible, easy-to-produce and not tied to specific seasonality. Buzon continues, “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 offers on-trade venues a choice of distinct occasions of which to serve, with consumer behaviour changing to enjoy cocktails during the day as well as evening, including as an accompaniment to brunch menus. Whilst traditionally an evening liquor, Brandy pairs well with both savoury and sweet dishes, making it an ideal cocktail base for brunch dishes. St Rémy recognises that brunch is a trend that will only continue to grow in the on-trade, as consumers seek new options, and this new strategy is designed to create the opportunity for consumers to discover and consume brandy in a new form.

Hervé Buzon: ‘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.’

St-Rémy believes this strategy will hit its three core objectives: expanding drinking occasions, rejuvenating brand perception and recruiting new consumers through on-trade availability.