For 30 years now, Christian Drouin Calvados has been distributed in Italy by Velier, the largest Italian spirits specialist. From these years of collaboration, a sincere friendship arose between Luca Gargano, Christian and Guillaume Drouin.
In 2004, Luca Caroni in Trinidad and Tobago, during one of his travels in the Caribbean, discovered the forgotten warehouses of a large state distillery founded in 1918 and closed in 2003. Caroni rum is among the most original heavy rums in the world, marked by notes of tapenade, pencil lead, petrol or even leather.
Aromas of roasted apples and dried apricots radiate from the glass and are joined by leather, brown sugar and petroleum in the best possible way. Fresh and lively on the tongue, full and complex with notes of baked apples combined with a bit of smoke and toasted notes.
In 2020, Guillaume Drouin envisioned a new challenge as exciting as it is demanding for Christian Drouin’s Experimental series and asked Luca if he could find some empty barrels of these rums. Six barrels of Caroni 1996 were soon placed in the Daniel Flambard cellar in Pont l’Evêque and filled with a 17-year-old Calvados Pays d’Auge.
“We had to find a Calvados that was powerful and structured enough to support the aromas of these old Caroni casks. I usually push the reductions of our Calvados quite far to find the best degrees of balance, but for this Caroni Angels found it clear that the selected Calvados needed to be maintained at a higher level. After maturing for 8 months in these casks, I felt the balance had been reached and Caroni Angels was bottled at 48.8% vol.”
Tasting notes:
On the nose, the aromas of burnt apple and dried apricot blend to express leather, petroleum and brown sugar. The mouth retains Calvados’ liveliness and freshness during the attack before revealing all its amplitude, richness and length. Notes of roasted, smoked and baked apple intertwine on the finish.
About Christian Drouin
Calvados house Christian Drouin was founded immediately after the Second World War by Christian Drouin, who had set himself the goal of producing the absolute best calvados in the world. This led him in the first instance to seek out the area’s smaller vintners to buy up their stocks of calvados, which laid the foundation for the house’s exceptional collection of vintage calvados. Great Calvados
In 1960, Christian Drouin then decided to take the plunge and produce his own calvados. However, 19 years had to pass before he felt that the collection of old eau de vies combined with his own production was sufficiently large for him to bottle the first calvados under the house’s own name. Since then, Christian Drouin has had tremendous success, and today you can boast of having received more awards and prizes for the product range than all other calvados producers combined! In addition to the famous vintage calvados that date back to 1939, the house also produces a number of fantastic blends, pommeaus and ciders.
Green development
Christian Drouin is one of the few producers who leaves a positive mark on nature. With the many apple trees and more than 35 different apple varieties, Christian Drouin absorbs 600 tons of CO2 per day. The place is beautiful and during our visit, we are almost transported to another time. On the other hand, the production “costs” only 200 tonnes – per year. Here, cows roam between the trees, and they are smart enough to know that if they shake the trees, apples will fall. The good thing, on the other hand, is that it is the sick and bad apples that fall down and become food for the cows. In other words, the cows contribute to the apples used in production being healthy, healthy and tasty. At the same time, the cows also eat the grass between the trees, thus making mowing redundant. Win/win. The apple varieties are primarily local, Norman apple varieties with some tannins. At the same time, Christian Drouin is nothing less than the world’s most winning spirits producer across all categories.
The apples ferment anywhere from five weeks to five months and turn into fantastic cider. It can then be distilled and become calvados. Typically, you will use both young and old in the blend, as the old Calvados typically have more acid. The Calvados is aged in casks and changes its character. The taste goes from fresh apples to ripe apples, to apple jam to baked apples, depending on the length of barrel ageing.
