The Story Of A $4000 Cognac Theft Took An Unexpected Turn

The case of the booze bandit who literally walked away with a $4,000 bottle of cognac has taken an unexpected turn. Per KTVU, just yesterday the Santa Clara County Sherriff's Office was seeking information about the theft of a bottle of Rémy Martin's Louis XIII Cognac, which was snatched from the Mount Hamilton Grandview Restaurant, a "classic steakhouse," located in San Jose, California. 

The news outlet further shared that the heist went down on Tuesday evening of last week, after a man and woman, who can be seen on security camera footage from the restaurant, entered what was described as an "empty bar" and decided to help themselves. Only they didn't just pour themselves each a snifter of the cognac in question, which also would have been wrong, but instead walked away with the whole bottle.

The woman in the video who is seen taking the bottle was dressed in a gown and apparently was a member of a party of 10 who had dined at Mount Hamilton Grandview that evening. The manager told KTVU the diners racked up a bill for $1,600 and paid in cash. For all those Agatha Christie fans out there, that means neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple could track down the thief using credit card information.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Deputy Russell Davis, a spokesperson for the Sheriff's Office, revealed that the bottle of cognac wasn't discovered missing until days later, forcing the restaurant to take a look at the security footage. Deputy Davis said, "They realized that it was missing and had to backtrack and look at the video footage to see someone stole the bottle of alcohol from behind the bar." 

As it turns out the thief in question had a change of heart and decided to return the lavish bottle of Rémy Martin's Louis XIII Cognac, unopened, per Mercury News, and lucky for her, the owners are not pressing charges. The co-owner of the restaurant, Maurice Carrubba, told the outlet, "She decided to come forward. And with everything going on in the world — we've got war, we've got Covid, with everything everyone's been going through — given that she's a mother of six who made a bad decision, we decided to give her a second chance." Alas, all's well that ends well.

So what makes Rémy Martin's Louis XIII Cognac so expensive? Forbes explains that this specific bottle of alcohol is "an experience" and describes this cognac as "the most complex" bottle out there with "1,200 different eaux-de-vie" — colorless fruit brandy – that create the final product. Can you get cheaper cognacs? Absolutely, but Forbes notes they will not taste anything like Louis XIII. That said, no cognac is worth a criminal record.