Golden Wat Cognac

Golden Wat is a cognac brand dedicated to providing exceptional taste and quality, with a modern twist. The brand pays homage to the Asian roots of its founders, while maintaining the exclusive French cognac tradition. Using only the finest ingredients, Golden Wat Cognac is made from 100% Ugni Blanc grapes grown in the nutrient rich soils of the Petite Champagne and Fin Bois terroirs of Cognac, France. Their cognacs are expertly crafted with over 200 years of cognac experience to create elegant and bold blends that are worth celebrating.

A proud Asian-American owned business, Golden Wat uses their brand to create awareness around representation and believes strongly in investing back into their community.

Kevin Ly is a first-generation Cambodian who grew up in a traditional Cambodian household, in an Asain community within one of Portland’s Public Housing Neighborhood, Riverton Park, and attended Deering High School. Since then, Kevin and his partners Peter and Jamie Teng and Hobi Nguyen have created a cognac brand, Golden Wat Cognac. As an up-and-coming cognac brand, Kevin believes that a company’s success is best measured by how it impacts others and how much a company is able to invest back into the communities that support them. It is equally important to him and his partners that their brand creates awareness and recognizes how their roots have helped shape the success of Golden Wat Cognac.

As a kid, Kevin relied on free school lunch. He knows first-hand how important child nutrition programs like school breakfast and lunch, afterschool, and summer meals are based on his own lived experience with food insecurity as he was growing up. These meal programs that were once a lifeline for Kevin are the ones that Full Plates supports today, helping Maine’s next generation of children realize their full potential.

Read more of Kevin’s personal story here.