Run screaming to your local newsstand to pick up November's issue of Everyday With Rachael Ray
magazine. I have a story in the issue about how to go out drinking with your hometown friends on the night before Thanksgiving without ending up hungover when you've got to cook all the next day.
Naturally, the advice works for any long night of barhopping and when you don't have to do diddly squat the next day, and there is even a quick and tasty mocktail recipe included.
A few months back I had a very long lunch with Francisco Alcaraz, Paton Tequila's Master Distiller and Blender at the restaurant Kokkari in San Francisco. Alcaraz is not only the current master distiller, he created the recipe for Patron.
Alcaraz studied chemical engineering at the University of Guadalajara then went to work as an inspector for an organization that was sort of a precursor to the CRT, the tequila regulatory commission. After that he went to work in a distillery and as a tequila consultant.
Alcaraz developed the recipe for Patron at the distillery Siete Leguas (another brand still producing delicious tequila), where Patron was made from 1989 until 2002 before building their own distillery. Siete Leguas had both the traditional tahona (a giant grinding stone that crushes baked agave before fermentation and distillation) and a mechanical shredder (roller mill) that accomplishes the same thing, though these produce tequila with different flavors (and the topic incites long tequila nerd arguments). Patron uses a combination of tahona-crushed and shredded agave in its recipe.
Other differences from Siete Leguas' recipe include the type of yeast used and the source of the agave.
The agave for Patron all comes from the Highlands of Jalisco, but it is not estate-grown. (That would be a darn big estate!) Alcaraz says they have contracts with seven large growers, and they do buy other agave on the open market. Another brand told me that they were required to buy some agave from small producers, but Alcaraz says that there is no requirement. There is, however, an incentive: The government (not sure if local or state) subsidizes part of the price of the agave to support these smaller farms.
Furthermore, Patron has long-term contracts with their growers to ensure that they will not be susceptible to the frequent agave market shortages that take place in cycles. (Another way they're preparing for future shortages is to store extra tequila in large stainless tanks to be bottled when needed.)
After agave is delivered to the distillery, it is slow roasted in brick ovens (compared with faster autoclaves that some brands use), fermented in wood fermentation vats, and double distilled. Contrary to industry gossip, Alcaraz says that Patron distills all their own agave, and it is all made at their facilities.
Beyond the regular Patron range, they have two super-ultra-mega=-expensive premium options: Gran Patron Platinum and Gran Patron Burdeos. For the Platinum, they use agave with the highest sugar content, triple distill it, and age it in a large new, uncharred oak tank for one month. The Burdeos is made from the same raw material as the Platinum, but is aged one year in American oak, then redistilled, then aged 10 more months in French oak, then finished in an ex-Bordeau wine barrel for two more months.
Alcaraz says he doesn't drink tequila out of the Riedel Tequila Glass
not because it's not good, but because it's too good. He says it makes tequila taste better than it is. "If there is something wrong I want to taste it!" he said.
He also said something I've never heard before: that tequila improves in the bottle. That's a surprise, but one I don't think I'll ever be able to test- not only do you have to have a long and great sensory memory, I can never wait around while there's a bottle of tequila nearby.
My final visit in the Cognac region of France was to the house of Paul Giraud- quite literally his house. In my brief visit we first learned about Giraud's philsoophy: while other houses try to use blending to get a round and multi-faceted flavor profile, Giraud tries to emphasize particular flavors in each bottling.
I found a commonality in all the Giraud cognacs though, a strawberry rhubarb creaminess. The Naopleon bottling is meant to emphasize the grape flower aromas, whereas the Vielle Reseve (labeled as XO in the US) emphasizes fruitiness with flavors that change from fresh to dried plum as the spirit warms up in the glass. The Tres Rare bottling, which is delicious, 49 years old and emphasizes spice on the palate.
Paul Giraud is located in the beautiful little town of Bouteville. There the brand (it's all estate-grown grapes in their products) owns 40 hectares, and they actually harvest about half of their grapes by hand instead of machine.
Some of the aging cellars are located right next to a stream, keeping them cool and humid year-round. In this cellar like all of them in Cognac, we saw spiders all around. They love spiders in cognac cellars (surely you've seen webs in my other pictures) as they eat the bugs that otherwise may eat through the wood in the barrels.
You know, maybe I should start using that excuse not to clean my apartment- I'm just trying to protect the furniture.
Last month I took a big trip to Cognac to learn about cognac. One of the many houses I visited was Otard. This cognac house is located in the former fortifying castle of Cognac in which Francois the First was born, on the Charente River next door to Hennessy.
A tour of Otard is part castle and city history tour, and part cognac tasting. The castle dates back centuries, but my interest really begins when it was purchased by the Otard family after the French revolution.
In the basement of the building are the aging cellars. As the river is running right next to the building, the cellars have 90 percent humidity, which the cellar master likes very much.
Otard buys eau de vie from the first four delimited regions- Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, and Fine Bois. On this visit we were able to taste raw spirit from three of them. As noted previously, grapes from the Fine Bois produce spirit that is fruity and aromatic right off the bat, but does't age well for long periods of time. You'd could definitely taste this as a fruity, tasty grape spirit.
The raw spirit from Grande Champagne was what I'd call tight- seems like you'd want to dilute it a bit to release the aromas. This they tease out after aging in oak. The spirit from the Borderies was, as it's supposed to be, very floral like lily or violet. Many brands use Borderies spirit to add this flavor to their blends.
Otard is available in the US but not widely so. They do a lot of business at duty-free shops and in Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia.
Otard also has a release Otard 55 that San Francisco bartenders recommended I try, as it is "natural strength" at 55 percent alcohol compared with the usual 40. This could be great for mixing into cocktails, but I'm afraid I have bad news guys: This bottling is being discontinued, as they say there was too much consumer confusion about it. Maybe they should have labeled it "Bartender's Blend" instead…
On a recent trip to France, I stopped in to Courvoisier cognac for a visit. Courvoisier is located not in the city of Cognac, but in Jarnac- one of the two other main cognac towns along with Segonzac. Jarnac appears to be a bigger city than Cognac and looks a bit more lively. I popped in to the tourism office and was told they don't really have any hotels in the city itself, just bed and breakfasts. The real hotels are the fancy chateaus a few miles outside the city.
Courvoisier dominates the Charente river waterfront here as Hennessy does in Cognac. Can you believe this picture isn't a postcard?
The house of Courvoisier is just as beautiful inside as it appears on the outside, though they have a bit of Napoleon overdose in the design theme. Courvoisier was the official supplier of cognac to Napoleon or some such, and they really are running with that. In the visitor's center downstairs, they even have one of his famous hats. (Branding suggestion to Courvoisier: make the Napoleon hat the bartender's new fedora.)
Courvoisier only purchases grapes for its cognac from the inner four delimited cognac regions- Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, and Fine Bois. They own two distilleries but work with several others to produce the eau de vie that will go into their bottles.
A unique thing about Courvoisier is that they pick out the trees that are used to make their barrels, then have them built especially for their use. (Most companies just buy barrels.) They use the traditional Limousin and Troncais forest trees, along with some from Jupille.
While there, we were treated to the La Nez de Courvoisier experience. Basically they take you into a groovy lounge, blindfold you, and blow smells in your face. You have a glass of cognac in front of you and the goal is to try to identify those same aromas in the cognac. They're bringing the La Nez de Courvoisier on the road in the US, but by the time you read this post they will all have happened.
One night on a recent visit to France, I visited Cognac Pierre Ferrand. It was awesome.
Our group had the good fortune to visit Ferrand on the first day of the cognac harvest, and the bad fortune to arrive so late that we missed seeing it. Alas. Still, we had a tour of the still room where during the winter the pot stills run for 24 hours a day. Ferrand actually has three brands of cognac that include Landy and Gabriel, with Ferrand as the flagship brand.
The stills at Ferrand are a little different, as two of them have "spirit safes" on them. These enclosures are required by the government to ensure that all tax is collected on spirit products, but they're not usually required on cognac stills. At Ferrand they make Citadelle gin in the off season, so they had to have the safes installed.
Ferrand releases blended cognacs without age statements, along with some very old single vintage cognacs including one from 1914. However, they're particularly proud of a more recent vintage 1972 cognac that's a new release to the market. And delicious. Also in the line is Selection des Anges, bottled at the point where the angel's share (that which evaporates out of aging casks) is greater in proportion to what's left.
Speaking of aging, I was going to talk about dry versus humid cellars, or chais. When cognac ages in humid cellars like those along the Charente river, alcohol evaporates out of the casks at a faster rate than water (much like distillation), and the spirits in the barrel loses alcohol content over the years. The good news is that because of this, flavors are more concentrated in the spirit and it needs less dilution to reduce the cognac to bottle strength, which is nearly always 40 percent alcohol by volume. Dry cellars (often located upstairs in the same aging buildings) are hotter and water evaporates more rapidly, so the cognac retains or even gains percentage of alcohol by volume. One blender described the dry cellars as producing dryer and more subtle cognac, while the stuff aged in humid chais was more fruity and flavorful.
After the tour of the distillery and cellars, we drove to the very modern blending facilities, which happen to be located behind brand owner Alexandre Gabriel's rather fabulous house.
We had a long and very fun dinner inside and that, friends, was a great night.
A few weeks ago I went to France to learn about cognac. One of the stops was the house of Cognac Frapin.
Frapin sells only estate-grown/distilled/aged cognac, produced in the Grande Champagne delimited region of the cognac area near the town of Segonzac.
Frapin is a massively impressive operation from the cellars to the blending room designed by Mr. Eiffel (yes that one) to the bangin' castle they own where we had lunch.
We first looked at the bottles, which are unusual for a few reasons. First of all, they sell not only vintage cognacs but multi-vintage cognacs of their "Multimilleseme" line with the three vintages in each. The years are listed on the labels.
To sell vintage-dated cognac, the brand must be able to prove that it comes from the year on the label. As the government didn't track this until relatively recently, this was a hard thing to prove, but some brands like Frapin clearly had their paperwork in order.
One thing I didn't notice until I looked on their website it that they have one bottling with a minimum age statement- "15 years old" stating that the youngest cognac in the bottle is 15 years old. I didn't know this was legal in cognac but I guess they are able to prove it. (Other brands have vintage dates like 1980 but not usually a minimum vintage- only a single vintage.)
I stated in a previous post that the aging process for cognac is a dynamic one and I think the product description (taken from the website) of the 15 year old really demonstrates what a cognac can go through before it hits the bottle:
Aging: Only 6 months in new oaks from Limousine area to preserve the fruit and characteristic of the Cognac. Then, 10 years in red casks (5 years old cask). Aged 8 years in dry chai and 2 years in humid chai. Then the cognac is blended with older cognac Grand Champagne from Frapin to add complexity from the very old Eu de Vie and aged a other 5 years in very old cask in a humid chai to mature the blend.
What is the difference between a dry chai and a humid chai? More on than in a later post. Also more on the dusty cellars later. The spiderwebs in cognac cellars are not a bug but a feature.
After the cellar tour, we had lunch at the Chateau de Fontpinot that is, as it looks, rather lovely.
I've been to nearly 50 distilleries of all kinds of spirits, but a few weeks ago was my first visit to a real cooperage- finally! Vicard Tonnelleries is a 6th generation cooperage near Cognac in France, where they produce 60,000 French, Eastern European, and American oak barrels each year.
American oak? Yes indeed. They buy trees in the US, let them dry a bit (I believe they said they're split into staves in the US), ship them to France and make barrels out of them there. Then some of them are shipped back to the US and other countries for use.
Speaking of drying barrels, American oak staves only have to dry for two years, while French oak dries for I believe four years. At this cooperage all staves are air-seasoned (left to dry outdoors) while in the US many are dried in kilns.
American oak barrels were described as aromatic and useful in short aging of spirits, whereas French oak barrels have more tannins, add structure to wine and spirits, and are better for long aging. French oak barrels are more expensive, but that's also in part because they're cut differently than American oak barrels. French oak staves are cut so that only 30 percent of the log is used, whereas American oak staves use the opposite- 70 percent.
This huge cooperage is very automated, yet dozens of workers end up working on every barrel. The cooperage has machines and staging areas for splitting logs, further splitting, making staves, assembling barrels, making lids, installing lids, toasting barrels, testing, labeling, and I'm sure many other processes. During and between each one, a worker is on hand to do physical tasks as simple as moving barrels and as complicated as fitting a lid.
When a barrel is assembled by hand, staves are placed into a circle with one or two hoops around the bottom, then the top staves are pulled closer together by fitting a cable around the top staves, heating the inside of the barrel staves with fire, and cooling the outside with water while pulling the cable tight. Here though, the half-assembled barrel goes into a giant steam machine and the cable is tightened automatically. When it comes out, the cooper fits the top hoop and tightens it on.
They also make some gigantic barrels of the sort you'd use for blending, fermenting, and storage. I think one would make an awesome cottage for the backyard, but then again I'm basically 12 years old and want to build a fort.
In France recently, I had a tour and dinner at the house of Remy Martin in Cognac. They don't allow photography in the cellar, so this post is a little light on the pictures. (Suck it up and read.)
We entered the building at night so it's hard to recall exactly what the house complex looks like, but if memory serves me right the buildings (almost a campus) was a combination of old and new architecture, the traditional tan stone buildings integrated with new glass-heavy buildings. We did a walk through of the distilling demonstration and aging cellars, then headed upstairs for a meal.
Remy's products are made from grapes grown in either the Grande Champagne or Petite Champagne regions. The VS product is 100% Petite Champagne,the higher end products are 100% Grande Champagne, and everything in the middle is a blend of the two regions. (The above picture is the blending room, by the way.)
A blend of at least 51% Grande Champagne and the rest Petite Champagne may be labeled as "Fine Champagne" on the bottle, and most of Remy's bottles are. As can be seen on the descriptions of the range here, each successive bottling labeled as Fine Champagne has a higher percentage of Grand Champagne than the last.
The real surprise of the night was the pre-dinner lounge with passed fish appetizers and the new Remy Ice Boxx. When the cognac (We had the VSOP- not sure if the VS is standard) was chilled to -18C in these machines it was surprisingly flavorful and nutty and not at all what I expected.
Cognac as the new Jager? I can't wait to see how this turns out.
While in France recently I visited the cognac house of Tesseron. This brand is notable for having probably the second largest collection of old cognacs in demijohns in all of Cognac.
Cognac can only age for so long in barrel before the spirit becomes flabby and loses its aromatic qualities. For cognac made from grapes grown in the Grande Champagne (the growing area producing grapes that age the longest), most cognac caps out at no more than 75 years in wood, though there are exceptions. After that point, the spirit is transferred to glass demijohns- round bottles about the size of a water cooler refill. These are stored in what is called the Paradis cellar at each house, and a visit to the paradis is a part of every cognac house tour.
The cellars at Tesseron date back to the 13th century and were once part of a crypt of the local church. We visited two cellars and saw rows and rows of cognacs dating to the 1860's- and were lucky enough to be able to sample some. This time is just as Phylloxera came to the region, destroying nearly all the vines in Cognac. These old grape vines were of a different variety than the Ugni Blanc planted today, so being able to taste them is quite special.
Like many brands, Tesseron has a long history of selling its unaged and aged eau de vie to the big houses, but then decided to sell some under its own name. The brand Tesseron was launched in 2003 and releases only products XO and above in age- no VS or VSOP.
Tesseron has several releases that would be vintage-dated but this is not legal in cognac unless the dates can be absolutely proven. (More on this in a future post.) Brands like Tesseron try to get around this by not labeling the bottles but letting people know what's in it. They label their bottles "Lot 90" "Lot 76" and so on, to imply the date of the cognac, but I did not verify with the brand that everything in the bottle comes from the year of the "lot" on the label and older.
Tesseron also sells cognac in 1.75 Liter bottles, which is fun. They have both the "lot" line and these sexy round "Extreme" line bottles shaped like a round demijohn. I think the black one would look particularly good in my apartment. (It's the holiday season coming up, I'm just sayin'.)
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