Heavily peated, it exudes maritime smoke, full of beachside fire, salt and iodine. It is floral and slightly grainy, very different from another Breton whisky, Kornog Roc’h Hir from Glann ar Mor, located on the Breton coast. Warenghem’s Double Maturation expression, named the sixth-best release of 2018 by Whisky Advocate, is aged in local oak and finished in first-fill sherry casks.

In operation for over a century, in 1998 it released a single malt, Armorik today it’s one of France’s bestselling whiskies. High in the French Alps, Domaine des Hautes Glaces, owned by Rémy Cointreau, makes its whisky from barley and other grains grown on-site in distinct parcels, or “climats,” chosen for their soil and sunlight-a standard vineyard practice.įrance’s oldest modern whisky distillery is Warenghem, in central Brittany. Terroir, a concept conventionally associated with wine, is making its way into whisky, too. Distillerie Meyer’s, renowned for its fruit brandies, makes both single malt and blended whisky, combining malt with a healthy dose of grain spirit, aged for seven years in ex-Sauternes casks. Though the distillery has been in operation since 2007, the whisky is still young, with a grain-forward palate of bread, smoke and vanilla. Rozelieures’ Origine whisky, made with its own barley, is lightly peated and aged in sherry and Cognac casks. Another brand from Cognac, Bastille 1789, is likewise aged in Limousin oak and quite sweet, though in this case with apples, pears and vanilla.Īlsace-Lorraine, site of many of France’s top eaux de vie producers, is also home to two of its most promising distilleries. It has an unmistakably floral nose and a sweet, almost bubble-gum quality on the palate. Brenne, for example, uses Cognac yeast and Charentais stills to makes its single malt, distilled from barley grown in Cognac and using Limousin oak casks that previously held-you guessed it-Cognac to age some of its whisky. The best examples are both innovative and traditional, drawing inspiration from long-established practices in novel ways. Like French wine, French whisky is diverse, with a national character at once obvious and hard to place. (They must, however, use oak barrels to age.) Alsatian whisky, meanwhile, is much more demanding: It must be made on a pot still, using only barley. Brittany is, by no small measure, the largest whisky region in France, and quite laissez-faire: It allows producers to use malted barley, wheat, corn, rye, spelt, triticale and oats, and to distill on a column, pot or hybrid still. As of 2015, these last two regions even have their own protected geographic indications, with their own rules in addition to those of the European Union. Countries like England and France already have strong distilling traditions, and in some, like Sweden and Germany, several distilleries are already well into their second decade of operation, producing well-aged spirits with a practiced hand.īy far the most developed whisky industry outside the British Isles, France draws on its long history of distilling in Cognac, Armagnac, Brittany/Normandy and Alsace-Lorraine.

What sort of national styles will emerge? Who will be the trendsetters, and will any of them rise to compete with global brands from established whisky regions? It didn’t take long for American craft whiskey to come into its own, and it will likely happen even faster in Europe. In many ways, the European whisky scene resembles American craft whiskey in the early 2010s: an industry flush with ideas, new distilleries appearing like mushrooms after a rain, and heady discussions about what the future will look like. It’s not uncommon to see the use of different grains, distilling methods and cask types, some of which draw on local traditions and some of which are the result of being wild about whisky and untethered to hidebound expectations. While many of the distillers outside Scotland and Ireland make malt whisky, and generally follow the Scotch-centric whisky rules laid down by the European Union, innovation is much more welcome, even expected, in these regions. In 2019, the entire French whisky industry produced about 530,000 gallons, a rounding error compared to Glenfiddich’s approximately 4.5 million-gallon capacity-still a dramatic leap from just 49,000 gallons in 2010.īut what these distilleries lack in size, they make up for in excitement. Every major country in Europe now has a local whisky scene, though almost all the distilleries are pipsqueaks beside the average Scottish behemoth.

French whiskey brands