Extra Old -“XO” was coined by Cognac Hennessy and first used in 1870. Even though the youngest blend in an XO Cognac can be as young as ten years, a XO usually has an average age of between 15 and 20 years, sometimes older. So how old is a Cognac XO officially? As of 2018, the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac (BNIC) increased the minimum XO cognac age for the youngest eau-de-vie from six to ten years, in an effort to improve the quality of the spirit across the board.