The First Couple of music has now staked a claim as the biggest power couple in the drinks business. When Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, first entered the world of champagne, partnering with 250-year-old maison Cattier to produce Armand de Brignac, many focused on the shiny “ace of spades” bottles instead of what was within. Over years, assumptions were overturned by the sheer quality of the liquid. Now, Armand de Brignac has taken an important step by releasing its first vintage champagne.

Meanwhile, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has launched a rye whisky called SirDavis – and, before you correct the spelling to the American “whiskey”, there are reasons why it’s without the “e”, which we’ll come to.

Before the whisky, though, the champagne. It’s a bold step to enter the arena of high-end vintages at all, and an even bolder one to announce that your first vintage will be a blanc de noirs (all pinot, zero chardonnay), instead of a regular brut. Two things to bear in mind, however.

First, Jay-Z has always aimed to be that thing that so many brands call themselves but rarely actually are – a disruptor in the drinks industry. The timeline, in 2006, of him acquiring a 50 per cent share in Armand de Brignac and him calling out Louis Roederer boss Frédéric Rouzaud for his comments about rappers drinking Cristal, is a little blurred. Certainly, a champagne brand owned by a Black businessman and celebrity had impact after that.

Second, Armand de Brignac has already earned plaudits for previous, non-vintage blancs de noirs. One such “assemblage” was described by Decanter as “very complex, yet elegant and harmonious, it has palate-tingling acidity with a very focussed finish and amazing depth”.

Armand de Brignac Blanc de Noirs Vintage 2015 (£2,650 in magnum, Harrods) is from a year with a wet spring and long, dry summer – ideal pinot conditions. Hence this cuvée of 70 per cent pinot noir, 30 per cent pinot meunier. Nuttiness, berries, violet aromas and spicy notes come in waves when nosing and drinking.

Jay-Z later bought out his Ace of Spades business partner, but is back to owning half after selling a 50 per cent share to LVMH (for a reported $300 million). And it is Moët Hennessy who has also partnered with Queen Bey to produce her rye. Cynics will again dismiss this whisky as celeb-endorsed rubbish, but this couple is serious about food and drink and understands quality.

They both know how to cross-promote, that’s for sure. It’s no coincidence that the opening track of Beyoncé’s 2024 album Cowboy Carter, Ameriican Requiem, contains the lines, “Looka there, liquor in my hand/The grandbaby of a moonshine man”. She probably remembers her husband’s 2006 video for Show Me What You Got, in which he dismissively waves away a bottle of Cristal and produces a shiny gold bottle of his own. The moonshine man of Ameriican Requiem is actually her great-grandfather “Sir” Davis Hogue, a farmer and illicit distiller in Alabama.

The story has echoes of another whiskey owned by a woman of colour, Uncle Nearest. Fawn Weaver created the brand in recognition of Nathan “Nearest” Green, an emancipated slave who was the first head distiller of Jack Daniel’s. Weaver hired a descendent of Green’s, Victoria Eady Butler, to become the first African-American female master blender.

This rye is certainly not the white lightning Knowles-Carter’s ancestor would have been secreting in the knot of a cedar tree (apparently his main distribution method during prohibition). In fact, it’s quite different to most rye whiskey. And this is where the spelling comes in. Apparently, Beyoncé is a fan of Japanese whisky, which, of course, was originally inspired by Scotch.

SirDavis (£79, 44 ABV) is distilled at the MGP Indiana distillery, which is known for its contract distilling and for providing whiskey with an extremely high 95 per cent rye content. This, however, is very much not that. Nor is it a Kentucky-style rye, with almost half of the mash made up of corn. The master blender on this whisky is Dr Bill Lumsden – the free spirit who creates some remarkable single malts for Glenmorangie (A Tale of Ice Cream was his latest) and Ardbeg. In order to give rye some Japanese and Scottish influence, Dr Bill ordered a mash bill of 51 per cent rye (the legal minimum to call it rye) and 49 per cent malted barley – a real rarity.

There is no age statement on the whisky, but enquiries have suggested it qualifies as a straight rye (over two years – but probably under four, because the law says you have to declare the age between two and four if you write straight rye on the label). Unlike bourbon, rye is permitted to have finishing and this was done in Beyoncé’s home state of Texas, but – another Scotch touch – in an ex-Pedro Ximénez sherry cask.

Orange zest is the dominant note on the nose, along with brandy-soaked dried fruit and spices from a Christmas pudding. On the palate, there is an array of baking flavours, from rye bread toast to shortbread, with the drier rye spices – led by cloves – softened by toffee sweetness. The finish is a fine balance between sweet, spicy and a hint of citrus and herbs.

armanddebrignac.com; sirdavis.com