Eau what a shame!

[Nemesis]

From the latest Soc of Antiquaries news:

The last days of a French rural tradition

A sad story published in the Guardian last week said that the right of French farmers to turn surplus fruit into eau-de-vie is to be overturned by a new law requiring home distillers – or bouilleurs de cru – to pay excise duty in future. At present, some 300,000 growers take advantage of their right to make up to 10 litres of pure eau-de-vie, or 20 litres of 50 per cent alcohol, tax-free. Expatriate Englishman, Robert David, who lives in the Creuse region of central France, has worked for fifteen years as one of an army of seasonal distillers who travel from village to village with his distilling equipment, helping people turn apples, pears and plums into eau-de-vie. ‘When I’m distilling, you can smell it all over the village,’ he told the Guardian, ‘and after the day’s work, we all go and have dinner; it’s a real party.’


Politicians have debated over these rights for half a century. As a public health measure, the French government abolished the hereditary part of these special rights, so most of the remaining bouilleurs de cru are now well into their 80s, so even without the new law, the practice will die out anyway.

 

[Penners]

the right of French farmers to turn surplus fruit into eau-de-vie is to be overturned by a new law requiring home distillers – or bouilleurs de cru – to pay excise duty in future

And of course, they will all obey the new law to the letter. Bien sur!

At my son's wedding in France (to a Dijon girl) we had a sorbet made from the local eau-de-vie. I had to collect the liquor from a local producer and deliver it to the traiteur.

It came in Vittel water bottles and had to be stored under the car seat on the way there!

 

[Nemesis]

I used to have a source of supply of poteen... delivered in an unmarked white van in unmarked bottles... which possibly explains the gaps in memory and failing eyesight.

PS - bet she cut the mustard...

 

[chuckey]

Does that make my "Calvados" in a Coke bottle, a vintage brew to be cherished, or just to be sampled as at present when we are drunk enough to fancy a challenge. FWIW we have nick named it, rocket fuel, ,nough said?
Frank

 

[biffvernon]

I have a couple of bottles given us by a French family. Yes, it is grandmother who makes it but somehow I can't imagine she hasn't passed on the knowledge or the determination to carry on the tradition in the face of all authority to the contrary. It is made from plums and has a very small label that reads just "prun".

We bought a few cases of wine from a one couple vinyard and after the necessary transaction were completed we (eight of us) had to sit in their kitchen and drink a bottle that had walnuts steeped in it. It was a brownish-grey colour. Hic.

 

[Gervase]

Just got off the phone to my brother-in-law, who lives halfway up a mountain track in Savoy, and all his neighbours are determined to carry on regardless unto the umpteenth generation, whatever the exciseman says.
His local eau de vie is called 'mule', and if there was any justice it should be illegal - it's absolutely vile and make you feel the following morning as though a wild boar has crapped in your head .

 

[Nemesis]

Now - how exactly you do know what that feels like?

 

[Penners]

Like a pig in sh*t I should imagine.