LVMH-owned cognac brand Hennessy is partnering with the Friends with Benefits (FWB) DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) to launch an exclusive luxury web3 social club, Café 11. Inspired by artist cafés of 1920s Paris, Café 11 aims to curate distinctive experiences across the globe for members. Membership to Café 11 comes in the form of an NFT featuring bespoke digital artwork by John P. Dessereau, a New York-based artist and one of the 3000 creatives in the FWB community.
This December’s Art Basel Miami Beach is the venue for the first Café 11 event. Apart from meeting fellow members, NFT holders will be able to participate in cognac tastings alongside food and music experiences over several days. Following the Basel event, NFT holders can access exclusive experiences internationally. From a strategic perspective, these events provide Hennessy with numerous opportunities to connect with customers and ultimately, they might buy some cognac.
The partnership leverages Hennessy’s 250-year legacy, with FWB’s aim of merging culture and cryptocurrency. It’s a great example of FWB supporting its artist community.
On November 4, FWB will mint 1,765 Café 11 NFTs, priced at $450. As one of the first luxury clubs powered by an NFT, the club benefits are open-ended in the web3 way. But with the Hennessy brand behind it, the barrier to entry is relatively low. That’s especially compared to a previous NFT that Hennessy sold for two bottles of Hennessy-8 cognac at a price of $226,450 each. That was in association with BlockBar, the alcohol NFT platform.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Hennessy partnered with luxury blockchain consortium Aura to provide traceability for its spirits from the distiller to the customer as part of a sustainability drive.
