The Distillery – Wednesday Oct 17th

The area where we’re staying, variously called the Midi Pyrenees, the Haut Garonne, the Albigeois, the Vignoble de Gaillac region, also likes to emphasize that it’s an area of craftsmen.  Yesterday’s expedition to look at potteryin Maitres Toulosane was one example.  Today, we go in search of distilleries.  There are two within 20 minutes of our house.

There is one odd factor at play here.  Lots of places, for reasons that escape us, do not have addresses. Even the Leclerc grocery store, which is in its own little mall, only lists the street that it’s on.  We don’t understand because the French are somewhat officious and rules/orderliness oriented.  So, not assigning numbers to locations on streets makes for a challenge. 

So, today we take a 1 ½ hour walk through the neighborhood vineyards.  Then we leave for the local distilleries.   Maxine puts into the GPS what she can, which is only the road that they’re on.

We head out and have passed the first one before I can easily stop the car.  And since we previously decided that we should drive by both and decide which seemed more amenable to visitors, we head on to the second, Castan.  There’s one other car in the parking lot when we arrive, which we take to be a good sign, so we decide this will be our stop and head up to the tasting room.  Unfortunately, it looks closed, so we peer in windows instead.  Then a woman comes from the back and opens up, with her daughter alongside her.  We’ve got our little patter down (in French) about how we speak just a little French, but understand more.  That usually works and the other person admits to the same language skills – they typically later prove to be MUCH more proficient in English than we are in French.

We ask to taste her various products, tentatively, because while we’ve been to plenty of wine tastings in our life, tasting distilled spirits and liqueurs seems a bit more out there…  She says, “but of course” and asks what we want to try (mind you, all of our conversations at Castan are in French – she’s more than willing to help us, to speak slowly, to put up with our garbled grammar).  We work our way through their product line, in the end deciding that the 80 proof spirits are the best, we end up buying 375ml bottles of the eau de vie de Poire William (pear), and the eau de vie de Vieille Prune d’Agen (plum eau de vie aged in acacia wood) . 

 

Our conversation with her goes well enough that we talk about the founding of their small business.  It was started by her husband’s grandfather in 1946.  She doesn’t say, but it seems obvious that that’s what he did to make a living when World War II ended.  We wonder what he, or his family, had done before.  We also talk about yeast fermentation, distillation, and how the liqueurs are made.  She shows us a promotional video they’ve made for the business and we get to see pictures of her husband as well as brother-in-law and sister-in-law.  It all serves to help us better appreciate the artisan quality of what we’re buying.

We walk away happy.  And, since we’re taking the bottles back to LA with us, you will to if you stop by and try some!