Tastes like sugared rainwater caught down a chimney

Episcopacy is a good thing; but it may be happen that a bishop is not a good thing. Just as brandy is a good thing, though this particular bottle is British, and tastes like sugared rainwater caught down a chimney.

G. Eliot, Scenes of clerical life (1858), 206
From 2010.

From the heyday of Waugh and Wodehouse, the brandy habit has declined amongst the British

From the heyday of Waugh and Wodehouse, the brandy habit has declined amongst the British but it's now massive amongst hip hop types in America. Courvoisier and Hennessy are the favoured brands. So successful has this unlikely collaboration been that Max Beaulieu, from cognac-expert.com, thinks their should be a statue of Busta Rhymes in Cognac. You should Google Beaulieu’s interview with the writer Nicholas Faith just to hear Faith reciting rap lyrics in his patrician English accent [it's from 13:05]. I was going to quote some but there is an awful lot of swearing.

It’s a long way from Wodehouse.

H. Jeffreys, Empire of Booze (2016), 169

In the Guardian article version of this chapter, he quotes Ja Rule’s (of whom I have never heard): “Feel the rage as it stirs behind me, I don’t give a fuck as they don’t give a fuck about me. I keep drinking Hennessy, bustin’ at my enemies.”