Ararat brandy is primarily sold in countries of the former USSR, chief among them Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and Belarus.

In the Russian-speaking countries of the former Soviet Union, the Armenian brandy is marketed as cognac (Russian: армянский коньяк, romanized: armjanskij konjak).

[1] An undocumented story claims that during the Yalta Conference, Winston Churchill was so impressed with the Armenian brandy Dvin given to him by Joseph Stalin[5] that he asked for several cases of it to be sent to him each year.

[4][9] This brandy was named in honour of the ancient capital Dvin, and was first produced in 1943.

[9] During a 2013 meeting at his personal villa in Sochi, Russian president Vladimir Putin gave British Prime Minister David Cameron a bottle of Armenian brandy as a gift, recalling Stalin's offering to Churchill in 1945.