Category: trips

China Baijiu Trip Miscellany, in Pictures
If you've been following along, I've made… quite a few posts after my amazingly informative trip to China with Ming River Baijiu. Today is all fun and photos.

Previous posts, all from this one trip:
So here are just some sights and scenes.

Luzhou

The Luzhou Laojiao distillery is located in the city of Luzhou. It's very much not dialed in for Western tourists. We were only there one night.

Above: The street right near our hotel.

The Yangtze River!

A lot of the buildings light up in China.

In the lobby of the hotel we stayed in had this glass cubby for the exclusive use of disinfecting TV remote controls. That's a new one.

Chengdu

From Luzhou we drove to the larger, most cosmopolitan city of Chengdu. It is a growing city and growing tourist and shopping destination.

My hotel room view.

A large, busy park in Chengdu. The yellow trees were a beautiful color not well captured here.

In the park, parents of single children put up signs advertising their adult children's assets. The parents stand around matchmaking in what must be the most humiliating act for the children.

We took an awesome street food tour. I didn't eat much but hello noodle sandwich!

This is a typical baijiu store- the bottles are usually red and gold.

We stopped by a more traditional street baijiu shop. This is a medicinal ingredient infusion kit. Yes, that's a starfish. There's a snake head poking out there too and who know what else.

The baijiu stand sells house infusions kept in the big jars, in various flavors.

The bottles are more infusion-grade bulk baijiu.

Somewhere not far outside the city, we visited a traditional old Chinese village that has been preserved for tourism. Our group of Americans was an attraction for the locals working in the village. People were taking pictures of us as we were taking them of the old buildings.

The interior courtyard of a famous artist's house.

Street vendors were selling local delicacies, along with tchotchkes, traditional parasols, and clothes.

Panda Sanctuary!

Part of what puts Chengdu on the tourism map is their huge panda breeding center and park. We played it right and got there right when it opened. Within two hours, thousands of tour busses pulled up all at once and it became insanely crowded.

The pandas are adorable of course, and the name plates describing their personalities were hilarious.

Part of the entrance to the park. The Kung Fu Panda movie has been integrated into the whole park.

That's all folks!
February 5, 2019
A Belvedere Distillery Visit and Vodka Terroir in the Single Estate Series
In the summer of 2017 I visited Poland with Belvedere Vodka to see how the vodka is made and to learn about the then-forthcoming Single Estate Rye series of vodkas, in which the same rye was grown in two different parts of Poland and separate, unfiltered vodkas were made from each. We got super deep into the science of terroir.

Belvedere is made from rye, which is first distilled at one of seven regional farm distilleries, and then redistilled and bottled at a distillery named Polmos Zyrardow. ("polmos" = "distillery") From other trips to Poland I've learned regional distilling followed by central distilling is quite common- why truck all that grain around when you can condense it into high-proof spirit and just transport the liquid?

The Polmos Zyrardow distillery dates back to 1910, and they've been making Belvedere exclusively at the facility since 1993.

Polish Vodka
- If the bottle says it's Polish vodka, it can't have additives like sugar/glycerin etc.
- It must also be made from a grain (rye, wheat, triticale, oats or barley) or from potatoes, rather than other fermentable material like molasses.
- Though it must be additive-free (this is exclusive of flavored vodka of course), it can be aged.
- The first reference to vodka is from Poland in 1405.
- Here's a more official page of Polish vodka production rules and processes.
Belvedere is made from rye, which has been grown in Poland for over 1000 years. Rye can thrive in harsh conditions; both hot and cold. Belvedere Pure (the flagship original) is distilled from golden rye, a high starch strain good for making alcohol that dates to the 1800s. The Single Estate series is made from another variety called diamond rye.

On site at Polmos Zyrardow is a water treatment plant that processes water from their well water source a 3km from the distillery. Water is purified in four stages: oxidation to break down chemical compounds into smaller parts; mineral filtration to remove iron and manganese; a soft filter to remove calcium and magnesium, and a carbon filter to remove all taste and odor. For water that is used to dilute Belvedere to its final proof, this water is then further filtered with reverse osmosis.

High-proof spirit comes in from the 7 farm distilleries and is redistilled at Polmos Zyrardow. It comes in at around 90-92% ABV, then it is watered down to 44-45% ABV before going into the stills. There are three columns in this distillery:
- The first column is the purification column, which removed impurities at the lower boiling temperatures than alcohol.
- The second column is the main rectification column, which removes impurities at a higher boiling point than alcohol, and brings the spirit back up to 96.5-96.6% ABV.
- The third column is the methanol column, which removes methanol created during fermentation.
The distillery runs for two seasons per year (corresponding to rye harvests I imagine), 24 hours/day (because it's harder to start and stop column stills) for a total of 167 days per year.

All the flavored varieties of Belvedere are made in house in the "alembic area." There they have cognac stills. The various ingredients are macerated in vodka of different strengths, and left to sit from anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks. The fleshy fruits might go into higher alcohol spirit and stay for longer than things like tea. They're then redistilled to make the concentrated flavors. They make each flavor separately, then blend them together for their combination products.

Belvedere Pure is charcoal filtered. (The single estate range is not.)

Finally the vodka is diluted and bottled at the distillery.

The Single Estate Rye Series, and the Science of Terroir

Our group then flew to the Lake District of Poland, to the Bartezek estate, where the rye for one of the two Single Estate Series vodkas is grown and first distilled. The flight passed over lots of green farmland, forests, and small farms before getting to the Lake District- from our flight path it looked like a series of lakes and streams between them.

The Lake District is made up of about 2000 lakes, and it's located far from industry and sources of pollution. The climate is of long snowy harsh winters and short summers.

We didn't visit the Smogory Forest estate, but the climate there is "the mildest in Poland." Belvedere Unfiltered vodka was the same product as the Smogory Forest single estate vodka is now- they changed the name to accent the difference between it and the other estate. This region has a longer growing season. It's not much of a farm region but a forestry one – half the land is forest.

The rye used for the Single Estate Series is a baker's rye called Dankowskie Diamond Rye- both farm distilleries grow the same rye. Typically bakers and distillers want different things from their grains: distillers want grains with high starch and low proteins (as I learned in Sweden), as they want to convert all those carbs to alcohol.

In fact, the golden rye used in Belvedere pure takes 1 square meter of rye to make 1 bottle of vodka. For this less efficient bread-making rye for the Single Estate series, it take 1.4 square meter's worth of rye.

Each of the Single Estate vodkas use the same yeast, though this yeast is different from that used to ferment Belvedere Pure.

We visited the local farm distillery where the Lake Bartezek-grown rye is first distilled. The grains have enzymes and water added to break it down into fermentable sugars, then it is fermented for 72 hours at 35C. After fermentation, the rye beer is from 7-11% ABV. After distillation in the single, 60-plate column, the spirit ranges from 88-93% ABV.

These two vodkas in the Single Estate series were sent out to laboratories for analysis: not just the final vodkas, but also the rye beer (the wort) from each. They were sent to analytic labs as well as reviewed by tasting panels. The results were that the differences between the two were much more pronounced before distillation, but chemical differences were found between them as well as tasting differences – so if you taste the vodkas differently, it's not just all in your head.

We went through the scientific and tasting panel analysis reports rather quickly, so hopefully the below doesn't have errors, but here were some results:
- The main flavor differences between the two single estate vodkas were due to Maillard reaction congeners (that produce toasty sweet notes) and lipid congeners (that produce fatty, waxy aroma compounds).
- The Lake Bartezek vodka had more impact by Maillard reaction congeners, with less lipid congener notes, and a higher amount of esters in raw spirit.
- The Smogory Forest vodka had more nitrogen containing hectacycles such as pyrazines (toast nutty, peanut, coffee, cooked notes), furfural (caramelized notes), 2-acetylfuran (almond honey sweet bready woody notes), and methyl 2-methyl 3-something notes (umami character).
The brand describes the tasting differences between the two vodkas as:
- Smogory Forest: "a bold and savory vodka with notes of salted caramel, white pepper and honey-kissed hints. It brings out the richer flavors of rye."
- Lake Bartezek: "a fresh and delicate vodka with hints of spearmint, toasted nuts and black pepper. It brings out the more nuanced characteristics of rye."
The production of the two vodkas wasn't 100% exactly the same: The way to do that would be to grow the rye in different places and distill it in the same place. For the single estate series, each vodka was distilled where it was grown. So beyond the local soil/weather conditions where the rye was grown (terroir), there were some other factors that could have influenced the final vodka's flavor. These include:
- The length of time the rye grew in each location was different, but I'd say this is an aspect of terroir rather than an exception.
- The water used for fermentation at each site. Water isn't just water, but includes different quantities of various minerals that can impact fermentation.
- The fermentation times were different at the two distilleries.
- One of the worts (rye beer) was filtered after fermentation but before distillation, and the other wasn't. I'm not sure what impact this would have in a column still specifically, but it makes sense that it would be some.
In any case, the brand admits that this product launch and overall experiment is merely "the beginning of the exploration of terroir" in vodka, according to former Head of Spirit Creation and Mixology Claire Smith-Warner.

It was a terrific trip for me – y'all know how much I love distillery visits – with about five times the science as usual.
August 22, 2018
Lunch in a Teepee, Dinner in a Castle: A Luxe Trip to The Glenlivet

Two years ago I went on a quick press trip with The Glenlivet single malt scotch whisky for the release of the first Winchester Collection, a series of 50-year-old whiskies from the brand. It was a vintage 1964 release.

While on the visit we were also able to taste the 1966 vintage that has recently come out and is the second bottling of the collection.

As this has just hit the market, I decided it was a good time to revisit my visit. Those notes are below.

The press release describes the new release:

The Vintage 1966 is the second release from Winchester Collection, The Glenlivet’s first ever series of rare and precious 50-year-old single malt Scotch Whiskies.

The Vintage 1966 is a precious whisky that uses sherry casks to enhance the trademark soft, sweet and sumptuous complexity that The Glenlivet is best known for. The result is a remarkable single malt that layers the soft, smooth notes of The Glenlivet with delicate taste of spice – a teasing intermingling of cinnamon and liquorice – and offers an exceptionally long, smooth finish with a pleasing hint of dryness.

Only 100 bottles of remarkable Speyside single malt, priced at $25,000 each, have been carefully guarded and cared for by generations of The Glenlivet Master Distillers and are currently on sale around the world in limited distribution.

An Afternoon Trip along the Smuggler's Trails

The hills and fields around The Glenlivet distillery has a series of walking trails called The Smugglers Trails, in tribute to the tradition of pre-legal distilling in the area. We had a day of activities leading up to the distillery visit, and then a dinner evening at a local castle. As one does.

In the afternoon we rode ATVs around the countryside, with a view of The Glenlivet distillery off in the valley. We had a picnic in a giant portable teepee (as one does), and enjoyed a display of falconry (as is typical).

The Glenlivet Distillery Visit (Nerd Stuff)

Next we headed downhill toward the distillery located in the middle of the valley. Though Glenlivet is the first licensed distillery in the Highlands (in 1824), this is the second location of the distillery after the first one burned down. The second was erected in 1858.

We first stopped at Josie's Well, one of the many wells used as a water source for fermentation at the distillery. The waters from the various wells are blended before use. Alan Winchester (for whom the Winchester Collection is named) says that The Glenlivet is a hard water distillery.

On the way into the distillery, we pass a duck pond that is used to cool the condenser water coming off the still- and I'm sure the ducks enjoy a warm pond to swim in.

Barley for the whisky is purchased from Scotland and abroad, and it is (as you'd guess from the soft and fruity flavor profile) unpeated. Winchester says the grind of the barley determines a lot of the final whisky flavor too – a point I'd not heard many distillers discuss (versus just maximum alcohol extraction). I'd like to investigate this more in the future.

For every ton of barley that comes into the distillery, one third ends up as whisky, another third as CO2 fizzed off by fermentation, and the final third is spent solids sold as cattle feed.

After the barley is ground, it goes to the mash tun where it is washed three times with hot water to pull out all the fermentable sugars. They don't stir it before pulling off the clearest liquid here, as this produces a less cereal-flavored (and presumably more fruity-flavored) whisky.

Next the clear liquid is transferred to the Oregon wood wash backs for fermentation. After 50 hours it reached about 8.5% ABV.

There are 14 stills at The Glenlivet, not just the six pretty ones you see on the tour. A lot happens out of sight or off-site, given that the distillery is relatively small. This is the second best selling single malt scotch whisky brand so they produce a lot here. There are aging warehouses located around Scotland, and things like watering down to barrel proof also happen elsewhere.

Demineralized water is used both for barrel proofing and for bottle proofing, as is typical.

Aging takes place in ex-bourbon, ex-sherry, "traditional" (reused) barrels, and new French oak barrels.

Dinner in a Castle

After sampling a couple of 50-year-old whiskies at the distillery, a castle was a natural choice for dinner. It helps that there are a lot of castles around.

But the castle that we ended up in is Fyvie Castle, which dates back to at least 1211. We had bagpipes, suits of armor, the whole shebang.

It was a nice way to end a quick-and-lovely trip to The Glenlivet.

Related articles

Distillery Visit: Deanston Single Malt Scotch Whisky

The Range of Kavalan Whisky, Thoroughly Described

Distillery Visit: Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey in Denver – Alcademics.com

Distillery Visit: Bunnahabhain Single Malt Scotch Whisky on Islay

January 5, 2017
Distillery Visit: Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey in Denver

This December, I visited the Stranahan's single malt Colorado whiskey distillery in Denver, in order to partake in the fun and insanity of waiting in line overnight for the annual Snowflake whiskey release.

The previous night, however, we were given a tour by Stranahan's distiller Rob Dietrich.

Background

Stranahan's was launched by Jess Graber, who along with George Stranahan came up with the original recipe and product launch. This was back in 2004-2006, and in 2010 the brand was sold to Proximo (created by Jose Cuervo and owner of stylishly-branded brands including The Kraken rum and Boodles Gin).

In Denver, there is clearly no animosity towards Proximo's ownership, as the Snowflake whiskey release events show. Likewise, Jess Graber's newer whiskey brand TinCup is "finished" at Stranahan's (and I believe owned by Proximo), so that relationship remains in good standing as well.

Production

Stranahan's is an American single-malt, meaning it's distilled from 100% malted barley. The barley they use is mostly a "bulk" barley, plus three other "specialty" barleys making up their custom recipe.

The barley is milled on-site, then put into the mash tun to extract sugars for fermentation. Water is added. Next it goes into a "boil kettle" that kills bacteria/sterilizes it basically. This is not typical in bourbon or scotch production, but comes from the facility's historical use as a brewery. This is the stage at which hops would have been added.

I'm guessing that between what they call the mash tun and the boil kettle, it's doing the same thing as the mash tun and wash back of scotch whisky (soaking the grains and washing out the fermentable sugars with hot water), minus the filtering of the liquids (which at Stranahan's comes in the next step).

Then it goes into a "whirlpool," another brewery tool, which spins it to separate the liquids from the solids and gets "clean distiller's wort" out of it.

Fermentation is in closed-top, temperature-controlled stainless steel fermenters that are 5500 gallons in size. These also come from the former brewery. The yeast Dietrich says is an unusual strain, chosen not for producing high alcohol content necessarily, but for flavor production. Fermentation lasts six days. The ABV after fermentation? They won't say.

Interestingly, the water they use for fermentation is charcoal-filtered city water, while the water they use to dilute post-distillation to barrel-proof and bottle-proof is Colorado Springs mineral water. Typically, it's the other way around – the "special" local water is used for fermentation, then the reverse osmosis filtered city water is used for the rest. Interesting.

After fermentation, they suck out everything except the spent yeast and keep it in the "wash storage" until they're ready to distill it.

There are three large wash stills. One is the distillery's first still that they used to use for everything. They've since expanded to three wash stills for the first distillation, and two smaller spirit stills for the second distillation (as there is less volume of liquid to distill after the first distillation is done).

As you can see, both sets of stills are pot-column hybrid stills. If I recall correctly, Dietrich said their hybrid still was the first of its type used to make whisky in the state.

After the first distillation the spirit is 40%, and the spirit comes off the second distillation at 150 proof (75% ABV).

The spirit is then diluted with water from Colorado Springs and put into the barrels at 110 proof (55%). Amazingly, this spring water for barrel and bottle proofing is El Dorado Springs water, purchased in 5-gallon bottles, same as you'd buy for the water cooler in your office. There was a huge rack of them in the distillery. So I guess if you wanted to make matching ice cubes or bourbon and branch water, you'd know exactly which water to use.

In Colorado's weather, the alcohol percentage rises in the barrel, so after 2-3 years it comes out of the barrel at 114-166 Proof. The barrels are all new oak barrels, toasted first then charred with #3 alligator char by Independent Stave.

After aging, the spirit is put through a 5-micron filter just to keep out barrel char, then diluted with water from Colorado Springs for bottling. None of the whiskies are chill-filtered.

Stranahan's Whiskeys

The three Stranahan's releases are distilled the same way – same recipe and process. The difference between them is in age and finishing.

The Stranahan's Original single-malt is aged a minimum of two years in new American oak barrels. The majority of the liquid is two years old, with some 3-, 4-, and 5-year whiskey blended in.

The Stranahan's Diamond Peak is all aged four years in new American oak barrels.

The Snowflake whiskies are annual releases first aged in new American oak barrels, then finished in a variety of casks that held other wines/spirits and blended. Those are available for one day and then gone for the year.

December 22, 2016
A List of Awesome Bar Names from Jamaica
I was in Jamaica a couple weeks ago visiting rum distilleries. Much like on Barbados (where they are called rum shops), Jamaica has a huge number of bars (and churches) per capita.

The bars line the sides of the roads and are usually little more than 1-room shacks. They have the best names, so given that we spent about 3 hours each day (each way) driving around the island, we made it a car game of finding the funniest-named bars on the island.

Here are a mere handful of the most awesome ones:
- Sexy Ann's Purple Juice Bar and Lounge
- Candy's Chill Spot
- Plastics Bar and Lounge
- Easy Hide Out Bar
- Girly Hot Spot
- Club Concussion
- Chillax Reef Bar
- Rum Face Bar
- Just 1 More Bar
- Wet Puss Bar
- Teisha's Rendez-Vous
- Denise Sports Bar
- Sexy OC Bar
- Yellow Bar
- Amazing Taste Restaurant & Bar
- Look Out a Road Pub
- Star Light Bar and Meats
- Flava's HQ
- Godmother Sports Bar
- Denise's Bar & Car Wash
- Ann's Chill Out Shop
- All Seasons Bar & Jerk Centre
- Diva's Hot Spot
- Hidden Treasures
- Sasha Bar + Treats
- Maggoty Jerk Center
- Breathe Ezzi
- Young Money Restaurant & Jerk Centre
- Birdy's One-Stop Pub
Related articles

Dunder and Dragons: Making Rum at Lost Spirits Distillery

New Booze: Fernet, Gin, Vermouth, Rye, Scotch, Bourbon, and Rum

A History of Australian Bars and Bartenders

Hey, Who Put Science In My Drink?
March 14, 2016
Domaine Du Tariquet Armagnac Distillery Visit
This was the last of 12 armagnac houses I visited and we certainly saved the largest until the end. Domaine Du Tariquet is a gargantuan operation in the Bas Armagnac, but they mostly make table wine.

We walked all around this property, up on top of huge wine tanks (I'm scared of heights but I do it for you, dear reader), to a super modern bottling line, and then to the completely incongruously ridiculously small room in the middle of it all, where the single wood-fired armagnac still is slowly churning out eau de vie.

The family owns 900 hectares of land for both table wine and armagnac. They grow and distill the usual Ugni Blanc, Baco, and Folle Blanche (no Colombard as far as I know), but also Plant de Graisse. This grape varietal is one of ten allowed for armagnac, but this is the first place I heard of that actually used any but the top four. They say they began planting these when the future of Baco was uncertain (at one point they were going to have to get rid of all Baco vines because it's a hybrid).

For their armagnac they use only free-run juice and allow a long skin contact maceration before fermentation. For 4-5 days it sits on lees in temperature-controlled tanks. The distillation is also slow and takes 3-4 weeks. At the end of fermentation they try to distill the wine for armagnac as quickly as possible.

As is typical for armagnac, they distill on "light lees." As mentioned, their still is wood-fired, which seems pretty crazy given all the technology they're surrounded by. They have to add wood to the fire every 20 minutes or so. (They are purchasing an additional still soon, but I'm not sure where they'll put it.)

The still is a mobile armagnac continuous still, but it stays in place in the small room where it lives. During the distillation season, they run the still 24 hours but stop once each week to clean it.

They distill up to 55% ABV.

They have between four and five thousand barrels aging.

For dilution, they use the 'petite des eaux, which is a mix of water fortified with brandy to prevent spoilage at 19% ABV in their case. The water ages in barrels alongside the armagnac barrels it will dilute.

All their varietals are distilled and aged separately, not blended in the barrel. We visited an aging warehouse located at another family-owned property, a castle where our host Remy Grassa's father lives when he's in town (as one does). Most of their barrels are not made of local Gascony oak.

Before bottling they chill filter to -8 degrees Celsius and run it through a cellulose pad.

Unlike many brands of armagnac, they do not specialize in vintages, only releasing three or four of them every 10 years.

Tariquet is the brand of armagnac I see most often mixed into cocktails in San Francisco. Here are some probably-useless notes on stuff we tasted:
- Folle Blanche 8 year: 50.5% herbaceous, minty, sticks
- Folle Blanche 12 year old: 48.2% Mellower minty version of the 8
- Folle Blanche 15 year old: 47.2% Creamed spinach and mint, my favorite of these three
- 1995 vintage: 45.8% (60% Ugni Blanc, 40% Baco) Minty, herbaceous, singular, deep long finish, fresh and Doubleminty
- 1993 Vintage: 45.2% (60% Ugni Blanc, 40% Baco) Creamy French Oak, light
- 100th Anniversary Blend: 53.5% uses all four grape varietals. Nice mix of mint, rancio, wood, "narrow pepper", a touch smoky. Interesting/complex/fun. And of course, no longer available.
May 5, 2015
Armagnac Maison Gelas Visit
Armagnac Gelas produces some unique armagnacs: in addition to the standard blends and vintage bottlings, they also produce single-varietal bottlings (and were the first brand to do so back in the 1950s) and armagnacs with barrel finishes.

Our host for the visit was Philippe Gelas, a descendant of the brand founder. Like many armagnac houses, they do not own vineyards (actually his brother does, but they buy it from him) and do not distill themselves, but purchase eau de vie and age and blend it.

Philippe says that different grapes used in armagnac grow best in different soils:
- Ugni Blanc and Colombard grow better in chalky/clay soils
- Folle Blanche and Baco grow better in sandy soils
Gelas has only been using Colombard for the past five years. It's not ready to be launched in their single-varietal line yet however.

They purchase from four suppliers, one of which is Philippe's brother. Though they don't distill, the warehouse (as usual, tucked around the corner from the office building) has a square column still on display that was built by Philippe's grandfather. He says it was built specifically to reduce the heady heaviness in distillation of armagnac.

When having wine distilled, they distill Ugni Blanc and Colombard to 60% ABV, and Baco and Folle Blanche lower to 54-56%. Philippe says you get more finesse out of Ugni Blanc this way.

Unlike many producers who call for a heavy toast, they have their barrels prepared with a medium toast.

We then popped to the tasting area – a little corner of a souvenir shop- and tasted a ton of armagnac. Here are some quick and probably useless notes:
- Seleccion – a young Ugni Blanc/Baco blend meant for cocktails. Philippe told us this one (only) has a tiny bit of sugar added to it. None of the others have any added sugar or color.
- 8 Year – Ugni Blanc/Baco blend 40% ABV. I liked this one better for cocktails; it could substitute for aged rum quite nicely
- 18 year Folle Blanche – 44.8% Spicy, thinnish, grapey
- 25 year Ugnic Blanc – 48.8% Delicious, rancio, peppery jalapeno
- 50 year Baco – 40% Smells like bread and butter, tastes dry and woody with mushrooms
- 11 year armagnac finished for 1 year in Lustao Oloroso sherry barrel – 54% ABV surprising and sweet
- 18 year armagnac finished in a port barrel – interesting ginger spice comes in
- 1943 vintage – Delicious rootbeer spice
April 29, 2015
Distillery Visit: Armagnac Delord
Armagnac Delord is located at the edge of the town of Lannepax in the Bas Armagnac region. They took us up a vineyard-covered hill for a view looking down upon the town.

I visited the property in November of 2014, but unlike many of the other armagnac houses they were not planning to begin distilling for the season until January 5th. Their plan was to distill for 5 weeks.

They make two brands: Delord and Marie Duffau. Though they do make some traditional products like prunes in wine and floc de gascone (the armagnac version of pinneau des charantes), they do not make any table wine.

Delord owns 42 hectares in 5 parcels around the village. They grow four grapes:
- 56% Ugni Blanc
- 13% Baco
- 24% Colombard
- 7% Folle Blanche
They are moving away from Colombard, however, toward Baco. (On my visit moving away from Colombard seemed to be happening at a few houses.)

Delord is one of three armagnac houses (along with Janneau and Samalens) that uses pot stills for the armagnac, along with the traditional armagnac continuous still. About 20% of Delord's wine is double-distilled.

Double pot distilled eau de vie at Delord is used in:
- Their blanche de armagnac (not aged in barrels)
- Part of the Delord VS bottling
- Part of the Marie Duffau Napoleon bottling
Their pot stills take about 8 hours per distillation, and they distill the wine up to 70% ABV, which is pretty standard, and put it into barrels at a reduced 65%.

One of their continuous armagnac stills dates back to 1900. Their armagnac stills have plates inside, as is normal. They prefer to use the spider-shaped plates as they say they get more mixing between the gas vapor and the liquid wine with them.

The old still from 1900 distills up to about 58% ABV, while the newer one goes up to 60-62% after the single distillation. They mix the distillates from these two stills together and put it into barrels at 55% ABV.

Aging brandy is aerated at the same rate whether the brandy came from a pot or column still, but they say they have to dilute the armagnac column still brandy more slowly than the stuff from the pot still.

They have 4 aging cellars; three of them crammed around the office building on the edge of town.

Unlike most of the armagnac houses I visited, they use just 10% local Gascony oak to age their brandy, the majority of it being Limousin oak. They give it a high toast. While aging they have about a 2% angels' share.

Last year they sold 200,000 bottles, 80% of them blends and the rest vintages.

We had time to create the wax seal for the bottle. Bam! I should get hired doing that, as long as you can drink on the job.
April 28, 2015
Distillery Visit: Domaine Boingneres Armagnac

In the armagnac region most of the stills are continuous stills, and they run them nearly 24/7 throughout the distilling season which is November through January, though legally they can distill through March 31.

Because the stills are on and someone has to be there watching over them anyway, many of the houses throw distillery dinners during the season. They invite guests to come have dinner (and drinks of course) while the stills run in the background. On occasion they'll need to change the barrel that the still is emptying into.

That was the experience we had at Domaine Boingneres. Our dinner was in the tiny room with one odd-shaped continuous armagnac still, served on a fold-out table by a single chef-caterer. Yes to all of it.

Domaine Boingneres owns about 22 hectares. 14 of them are Folle Blanche, while the rest are split between Ugni Blanc and Colombard. Because of their specializing in Folle Blanche, they use only a medium toast to their barrels to not mask its flavor.

Their still resembles a pot still but there are 6 plates inside.

On the night we visited they were distilling Folle Blanche grapes. The wine came in at 78.4% ABV and they were distilling it to 52%, which is pretty low even for armagnac.

This year they were planning to distill 40 barrels. While distilling they can make 2 barrels in 24 hours, so this means that it their distilling season will be about 20 days long.

While distilling, the distiller would dip a wooden stick into the barrel to see how full it was, and based on this he'd know how much longer to keep filling it before exchanging the full barrel sitting beneath the still with a new empty one.

This is a very well-respected armagnac house. They do not chill filter any of their armagnacs nor add caramel coloring. The only product they reduce with water to bottle strength is the 5 year old.

Because they don't reduce their aging brandy with water, the don't do the annual aeration and dilution of the barrels that pretty much every other armagnac house we visited does. The do top off the barrels while they're aging though, and to do this they use the brandy stored in the first and last barrels distilled that season as they're most likely to be the outliers. Distributing them across all the barrels of the season over the years would lessened the impact of any differences.

To get to the aging warehouse, we put on our coats and were led by flashlight across the grass to a barn. There we spent a lot of time dipping into barrels and trying armagnac from 1986, 1972, 1976, 1979, and other years.

If I could spend the season dining by the still and dipping into barrels, I wouldn't mind French winters at all.

April 22, 2015
Armagnac Dartigalongue Distillery Visit

Armagnac Dartigalongue also claims to be the oldest brand of armagnac in Bas Armagnac as does their nearby neighbor Casterede. They're a rather large brand, exporting about 60% of the 50,000 bottles they produce annually. They also make the brand Croix De Salles.

Dartigalongue does not own their own vineyards nor distill their own brandy, but has long-term contracts with their four winegrowers in Bas Armagnac and their distillers. They use the famous mobile distillers, which I assume distill on site at the wineries rather than here where where it's all about aging.

Of the big four grape varietals (baco, ugni blanc, folle blanche, and colombard) they only don't use the last one.

Their wine is distilled by the roving distillers to 60% ABV.

They typically use only barrels made of local Gascony oak but now are experimenting with several other barrels – we saw a small part of the warehouse with the same eau de vie aging in four different barrels as a test. They are also testing steam-assembled barrels, which I believe is the faster, more modern way to bend barrel staves in bigger cooperages.

In armagnac, producers typically reduce with water and aerate the aging brandy on a regular basis, and everyplace seems to do it a little bit differently. Here at Dartigalongue, every two years they aerate the brandy for half a day and reduce it by 2% ABV for the first 10 years. They say this created the special taste of that brand. After ten years, they only reduce the armagnac every 5-7 years or so.

Our host Benoît Hillion said that if they didn't aerate armagnac, it would be tougher and less ethereal, less open, more aggressive, and have a shorter finish.

The Dartigalongue house is at street level at the edge of a small old town, and as it typical in armagnac that house is stuffed full of flammable liquid: We walked upstairs from the office to find their dry cellar, then down into the basement to find their cool, humid cellar.

Hillion described the house style as "aromatic but not without agressivity; spicenss of course, and a long aftertaste." I often found the house style to be spicy-minty and not as green and mushroomy as other armagnacs. The 1975 vintage I thought tasted of tarragon, while a 1955 vintage was creamy, sandy, and spicy.

After the tasting we walked across the street to another small building we own. Downstairs was a museum of sorts, with lots of vintage armagnac paraphernalia including racy/misogynist menu ads from long ago, and cruise ship wine lists and very old demijohns of armagnac upstairs.

April 21, 2015