English higher classes at various times liked to parrot the French. That’s how they started e.g. adding milk to tea, which was started by a French lady to fight

English higher classes at various times liked to parrot the French. That’s how they started e.g. adding milk to tea, which was started by a French lady to fight off the bitter taste of low quality tea imported from China at the time. That was before the French moved to coffee due to English dominance in China which blocked them from getting tea at reasonable prices. So I don’t think that brandy being linked to the French would be problematic, given long enough time scale.