I find a taste of apple. “Well, there’s none, it’s 100% mirabelle!” Tasting eau-de-vie is an art that is slowly tamed… Fortunately for beginners, the trend is towards distilleries. A fifth micro-distillery opens this week in Paris, the distillery of L’Arbre sec. And all over France, the trend is the same. Fueled by the gin craze, these mini-distilleries focus on local production in small quantities. Local to adhere to the eco-responsible trend, and in small quantities to take full advantage of the partial exemption of taxes when distilling less than 1,000 liters of pure alcohol per year.
But back to our mirabelle with an apple taste. Victor, a young distiller from Lorraine, came, with some colleagues from all over France, to have their products tasted by Parisian wine merchants and restaurateurs during a “gnôle” aperitif. The goal is to attract a new clientele with artisanal “gnôles”, wine or fruit alcohol. “The general trend is towards cocktails for eaux-de-vies, for sure,” explains Victor. “But consumers are starting to take an interest in the pure product. For example, you can go to the gin tasting after the gin tonic.” Specializing in fruit eau-de-vie, Victor is part of the neo-distillers who are reconnecting with the ancestral tradition of the traveling still. “What interests me is also to meet people who want to learn to make their own eau-de-vie. I offer them a legal and secure framework to do so.”
Switched to electric
A few streets away, L’Arbre sec distillery also focuses on transmission. “Everything has been designed to be open to the public,” explains one of the three associates behind the project, Charlotte Bartoli. “We wanted to welcome people, show them the still at work. We are focusing a lot on workshops, not just on the shop.”
A project that explains the somewhat crazy location in the heart of Paris. “It’s true that our cobbled courtyard is very pretty, but it’s a bit of a nightmare for bottle deliveries,” laughs the founder of the distillery. “We launched the project with the banks shortly after the explosion of Rue de Trévise… The idea of storing hundreds of liters of pure alcohol and a gas still in the heart of Paris was not really in fashion…” In the end, the Hollstein still is electric, and the location is splendid.
Chatting rather than boozing
Yet unfamiliar with the charms of the 1st arrondissement of Paris, Maurice Grosjean, a distiller from the Cévennes, understands the approach. “I restarted the still in 2020, during the confinement. I had a little time and it was an old project that I had in mind. After a few months, I realized that I had done all this to give my friends a reason to come to my place… Eau-de-vie is really about sharing and terroir. We drink little and discuss a lot about what we drink…” While he has not yet put his production of chestnut eau-de-vie on sale, the current enthusiasm for artisanal micro-distilleries gives him faith in his project. “I thought an appellation and industrial production were needed to make a living. But there seems to be a market.”
Julien Thezan, from the Jeevro micro-distillery, confirms that there is a market: “We make a living from it, even with small quantities…” This “we” is him and a couple of distillers, based in the mountains, in Savoie. “Annick and Joël started with génépi twelve years ago. They realized that it would be complicated to live on it year-round, so they decided to diversify by getting into processing. Since we grow flowers and have the authorization to pick in the wild, we applied for distillation authorization to make various products, including gin. The customs officers didn’t even know how to handle the request, it had been so long since anyone had asked for it in Savoie… We did well because for the past two years, it’s been really trendy. We hope it has opened the door to others in Savoie. At one point, a distillery was opening in France every day. Now it has slowed down.”
Training and bottles
Really? Not if you ask The Brew Society. This training center, created in 2019 during the microbreweries wave, has been offering retraining courses for micro-distilleries for the past two years. “It’s our students who have made the request,” acknowledges Marie Dorothée Quilis, the center’s director. “The French are consuming more and more spirits, there is also a huge gin trend, but beyond that, there is a market focused on organic and local products. We immediately received a lot of requests and we will further develop and diversify our training courses.”
The training center based in Normandy welcomes distillery students from all over France. “There is a demand for very local alcohols,” observes Marie Dorothée Quilis. “Everyone wants to develop very short circuits, bring the terroir to life with very high-quality products.”
Surprisingly, the distillery of L’Arbre sec, in Paris, shares several of the values of artisanal micro-distilleries in the countryside. While the business plan is more challenging, the spirit seems the same: small productions, small bottles, a sense of terroir. “Even if our flowers don’t grow in Paris, we use French products,” explains Charlotte Bartoli. “And we want a Parisian identity for our products, a spirit. Each still is unique so each micro-distillery is too.” In the end, for these micro-distilleries, it doesn’t matter the intoxication, as long as we have the bottle.
