2023-11-27 17:05:31
“It’s floral and spicy with notes of grapefruit, heather flower or eucalyptus. It’s an explosion at the first sip but I also wanted a nice length in the mouth. It’s a pleasure creation: the gin I’ve always dreamed of,” says Mickaël Blondelle, manager of the Reims Distillery. A project which continues well beyond the dream because since last Monday this famous beverage has just won first prize in a prestigious London competition.
Rather funny in a city where champagne, the local drink, tends to win all the prizes. It is a few meters from Reims Cathedral that Mickaël produces his product. In the middle of the stainless steel barrels and vats, the purring of the boilers and the hiss of the still resonate. We are in the den of his laboratory where everything is made by hand from A to Z, until the final bottling.
It’s been a year since he launched his gin in a bottle with an Art Deco decoration in homage to the city of coronations. “The difficulty was to combine a multitude of spices, you have to know how to grade them in relation to each other. It’s like on a mixing table, it’s a spice by spice dosage. When you create a spirit like creating a perfume.”
“A reward for all my work”
On the table, around sixty encapsulated spices face the creator. Rose berry, yuzu, cloves, jasmine, poppy, hibiscus… Around sixty spices harvested from all over the world. “I had in mind to create a spirit from the start, there is a form of logic because after having launched a brewery, having a distillery is the next step. Beer allowed me to have this apprehension of dosages and to develop my nose.” And obviously his nose did not deceive him because the blind tasting against gins from producers from all over the world was decisive. The jurors awarded him the gold medal. “In the end, it’s a nice surprise and a reward for all my work. Taking part in a competition allows you to know if you are up to the task and if you need to adjust your dosage,” continues Mickaël.
A French “gin” which remains relatively accessible for amateurs since it costs 39 euros to obtain a bottle at the Distillerie de Reims boutique or in the network of distributors. Currently, nearly 200 bottles are sold each month, but this figure could more than triple thanks to this prestigious award. And in the large family of spirits, Mickaël has just launched a vodka and a mint elixir. “But the long-term objective is to create an alcohol specific to Reims, something that does not yet exist,” he slips.
#gin #world #produced #Marne