OK, all you residents of Chadds Ford, Pa., how do you say “burnt wine” in Dutch? Give up? It’s “brandewijn”. You spell it differently.
Dutch traders visited the Cognac region of France back in the 1500s to buy wine among other things. The wine was hard to preserve for the trip back so they distilled it. They then distilled it again. Burning it in other words. The name for the product was eventually shortened to just “brandy”.
Cognac is just brandy made in Cognac.
Hat tip Robert L.