We were a day behind schedule thanks to my fever and we were eager to get started seeing what we wanted to see. I was still a little weak so we decided to spring for a cab ride to the brandy distillery in town. It was a short walk from the hotel to the edge of the city square, and there were plenty of taxis waiting for business there.
We caught a ride in one taxi, and the driver was great. He was so proud of his city, and happy that there were some tourists like us that came to explore it. He told us all about the Armenian diaspora, and was obviously happy to promote his city and culture to some people from other countries. Sometimes his English was a little hard to catch but the fact that he was trying to talk with us more than made up for it.
The ride to Ararat Distillery was just a few minutes, but we could feel the oppressive heat outside. We paid our cheerful driver, got out and walked quickly to the entrance to look around and maybe do a tasting. Inside at reception they explained that tours were by appointment only, but as luck would have it there was an English–language tour being held that day at 3:30 pm. We signed up for it, and then hit the road.
I was feeling much stronger so we left on foot, and attempted to walk to another distillery nearby, called NOY. We could see the distillery, but the roads were set up in such a way that it took a long time for pedestrians to reach it. When we finally did, we discovered that it wasn’t open yet. Rather than wait around in the hot sun, we decided to head home and rest under our apartment’s air conditioners.
The design of the city of Yerevan was interesting – the interior with most of the sightseeing spots has many open squares, parks and restaurants and seems designed with the pedestrian in mind. It is a very large part of the center of the city, covered with trees and fountains and makes it really pleasant to get around. Luckily our hotel was centrally located in the center of it all. However, once you left that area on foot, it became a lot more difficult. There were not many pedestrian crosswalks, and like Russia you had to look for underpasses hidden underground to cross the street. The outside of Yerevan was built for car traffic.
Back in our hotel we drank lots of water, took a nap, stayed cool in the air conditioning, and got ready to go out and drink brandy. Around 3 pm we caught another taxi and repeated the exercise, arriving in time for our tour soon after.
The Ararat distillery is in a distinctive building that really stands out on the Yerevan skyline. Inside there are shelves of brandy bottles on display, and even a security guard and security gate to make sure nobody steals anything. The smell of the evaporating brandy being aged inside the building was everywhere, and it looked like they had invested a lot in the decoration and interior of the reception area. Nice place!
We paid for our tour and the post-tour tasting, and after converting the cost of the “premium” tasting in my head I realized it was a great deal. The tour lasted about an hour, and the tour guide reminded me a lot of the tour guides back at Benziger Winery – probably tired of saying the same thing over and over for laughs. But it was informative, just not quite as stylish as the Hennessy tour was. There was a barrel of brandy reserved for each presidential visitor that had personally visited the distillery, that they were welcome to claim at any time. I noticed that Putin had visited twice. In fact, they said that they exported 90% of their brandy to Russia. I had no idea that the Russians had that kind of interest.
There was also a “peace barrel” of brandy representing the cease fire and peace accord that was arranged between the countries of that area. There was a flag representing each country involved, and they promised to open the barrel once it was completely peaceful between all of them. As the barrel was still closed tight I guess there was still some room for diplomacy.
My favorite feature was a locked “security” door with some fancy LED lights that led the way to “paradise” – the location of the oldest and most valuable brandies. I doubted that the door was more than just a plastic facade, but I liked the stagecraft in setting it up as part of the tour.
While we walked through as a group, there was a smaller group of four people walking behind us, talking in big (foreign) voices, and causing our tour guide to yell at them to be quiet, please. They walked through our tour while the guide was speaking, and they honestly had a pretty rank smell about them. They looked at all of us with a bit of contempt, and the tour guides and staff clearly returned the dirty looks. What was going on here? Later they joined the tasting so they must have paid but clearly there was some tension in the air.
The tasting was conducted after the tour in a special tasting room that was nicely arranged so that you could sit and savor the brandies. We had three brandies to try, their standard brandy (aged 7 years), another one that was our personal favorite (aged 20 years), and finally a third that was blended with various ages and supposedly their high end brandy. There was also a little paper cup of dark chocolate prepared. The guide explained how to drink brandy (no ice, warm it first, look at the legs) and then let us get started.
We enjoyed the tasting, mainly because we have really been enjoying Cognac since our visit to Fabien in Cognac and the tour of Hennessy that he arranged for us. Now we drink Hennessy Cognac quite often, especially since it is really cheap in Japan.
The brandy here was good, quite good really, and we were very satisfied with the quality. I’m certain that in a blind tasting we might even prefer it to Hennessy VSOP. We particularly liked the 20 year old blend – delicious.
Across from me a solo visitor was tasting the brandies. Not tasting really, more like drinking. She went through the brandies in a matter of minutes. At one point I asked her to take some photos of Kuniko and I together, and she took the photos without a word or a smile. She tossed back the last brandy and left soon after. Wow!
Later we checked the prices of the brandies both at the distillery and at stores around Yerevan. The cost was extraordinary – between four to eight times the cost of comparable Cognac in Japan. We originally thought about buying a souvenir bottle and bringing it home, but it turns out they export to Japan and it would be easier enough to buy it there. However, the cost difference was still way too high – it was delicious but not eight times more delicious.
Considering our weakened condition we left some brandy in our glasses as we moved on, something we would never do in Japan. From there we were able to catch a taxi back to the city center to see about getting some dinner. The taxi almost t-boned a car that suddenly crossed in front of us against a stop light, and that was our brush with death for the day. Our taxi driver gave the offending driver a dirty look and then continued on to our restaurant.
The restaurant was called Dolmama, which according to our research was a good balance of upscale and traditional Armenian food. The building was a pretty old European style, with tall ceilings, modern interior design and a homey feel in the dining room. The staff were especially friendly, with lots of smiles and helpful recommendations from the wine list. We ordered dolma, kofte, and manti for dinner. It was a little less than we usually order, but since I was still recovering from my stomach problems we thought it best to take it easy. The food was quite good, a little spicy, and much healthier than all the cheesy bread we ate back in Tbilisi. Also I was impressed with the red wine we had. We came to Armenia concentrating on the brandy, but the wine was quite good, too.
After dinner we decided to walk around the center of Yerevan. The heat had subsided and we could walk the streets comfortably. Yerevan had a really nice feel to it. We didn’t see any beggars, the sidewalks were fully developed and every intersection had a crosswalk with a signal. These were some of the things we noticed after walking around Tbilisi for the past few days, where crossing the road could sometimes feel a little risky.
Also in Yerevan they had paid a lot of attention to central squares, open spaces for people to gather, and lots of artistic statues and art installations. It wasn’t nearly as touristy as Tbilisi, and it felt like we were surrounded by locals most of the time.
One of the highlights was seeing the Cascade Monument, to the northwest of town. It reminded me of something sort of Roman, with steps all the way down from the side of the hill. We skipped climbing it because of the weather, but had we been there in another season I’m sure we would have enjoyed the steps (and calorie burn).
We strolled around the center of town for a while until it became dark, and then headed to the main square to see the fountain show that was supposed to start at 8 pm. For some reason it wasn’t running at the time, so we sat down to wait and people watch. I was surprised how many people there were out relaxing together, and it struck me again how nice these centralized places were for actual human-to-human communication and interaction. People laughed together, played with their kids, and the whole thing felt like a special event. For us it was very special, but for most everyone else this was just a regular summer night.
While waiting we noticed a cloud of smoke and the strong smell of barbecue at some point. It turned out there was some kind of fire down the street coming from a restaurant. We never saw flames, but plenty of smoke. Suddenly it stopped, however, and I guess everything was under control. I had little cinders in my eyes during the rest of the night, so I think it was a bigger fire than we knew at the time.
The fountains were running sometime after 9 pm, and it was impressive to see what they were doing with water technology these days. They shot up high in the air to music, with lots of colored LED lights to accent the dramatic points. The music was traditional and popular Armenian songs which evidently meant a lot to the audience but not much to us. It was a great show, and it went on for almost two hours. At some point we got tired and walked down the square to a long promenade lined with cafes and more fountains, and drank cold beer outside while watching people stroll by now and then. It was nice to sip beer and listen to the music from the central square off in the background.
I was glad to be back in the land of the living and I was feeling better by the hour. The only after-effects of the fever that I noticed were a reduced appetite, and it seemed like I was quicker to break out in a sweat when out in the heat. I understand that both are side effects of heat exhaustion, and so we both promised to be more careful about heat exposure for the rest of the trip. This was the middle of a heat wave in summer, after all.
