‘as Intense As Perfume’: Which Eaux De Vie Are Worth Trying?

“I’ve had group burst into tears tasting these – it takes them consecutive backmost to a infinitesimal successful their past.” I person travel to sojourn Barney Wilczak, an unusually soulful spirits producer, astatine Capreolus Distillery adjacent Cirencester. We are surrounded by stainless-steel vats of his eau-de-vie, the clear, fragrant brandy that he distills from apples, gooseberries, cherries, pears, plums, raspberries, grapes, quince and various different fruits grown wrong a 35-mile radius of this sunny English hilltop.

I opportunity “distillery”, which mightiness make you ideate thing vaguely industrial, but we are successful truth successful his dad’s garage, while nan still itself is successful nan shed. But nan liquids? My goodness. Each 60-litre instrumentality represents astir 4,000kg of fruit, each picked wrong a time of ripeness, wild-fermented complete months into consequence wine, past triple-distilled to exacting specifications that alteration consequence by consequence and batch by batch. Obsessive doesn’t screen it. When Wilczak made his first batch of raspberry eau-de-vie, he reckons he hand-graded 2m raspberries, rejecting immoderate pinch moreover nan slightest imperfection.

Barney Wilczak astatine nan Capreolus distillery successful Gloucestershire.

It’s not difficult to spot why fancy restaurants are truthful keen to adhd Capreolus to their after-dinner trolleys (uber-chef Anne-Sophie Pic was an early champion). A mini digit dip sensation of nan raspberry type reminds maine why we telephone these things spirits: it takes maine correct backmost to nan bushes successful my great-granny’s plot erstwhile I was 4 aliases 5 and is much for illustration having immoderate intra-species communion pinch raspberriness than simply drinking thing raspberry-flavoured.

If you’re thinking, “Wow, I stake that’s expensive,” well, yes, sorry. However, dissimilar galore premium spirits, you tin spot precisely why it’s costly (the pear and pome versions are conscionable a shadiness easier connected nan wallet). And they’re truthful aggravated – for illustration perfume – you tin usage them a small for illustration cocktail bitters: a mini driblet utterly transforms a martini.

Hand-sorting gooseberries for a caller eau-de-vie – Wilczak reckons he worked his measurement done much than 2m raspberries for his first ever batch.

Wilczak opened successful 2016 and his labours person since helped to attraction liking connected a class of spirits that is often overlooked. There are various styles of eau-de-vie made crossed Europe, often made domestically arsenic a intends of utilizing up surplus consequence but sometimes hitting nan heights of refinement. Kirsch, distilled from cherries, is simply a German/Austrian speciality; poire williams is an après-ski classical successful Switzerland; slivovitz from plums is wide drunk crossed eastbound Europe; Hungarian pálinka is simply a nationalist obsession.

It is possibly nan astir purely cultivation tone , an look of its peculiar spot and possibly person to vino successful this respect than astir commercialized spirits. Wilczak, a erstwhile wildlife photographer, sees his ngo arsenic capturing not only nan consequence itself, but nan full orchard: nan blossom, nan bark, nan soil, nan sensory representation of each of nan above. “We are really reductive successful nan measurement we deliberation astir plants,” he says. “We say: this is nan consequence and this is nan plant, but that consequence has each nan elements that make that plant, conscionable successful little concentrations.”

Four fragrant eau-de-vies

Luxardo Kirsch de Cuisine £17.34 (500ml) Tesco, 25%. You bought it for fondue, now effort it successful a rose: 50ml barren vermouth, 25ml kirsch, dash of grenadine.

G. Miclo Eau de Vie de Marc d’Alsace Gewürztraminer £53.25 (700ml) The Whisky Exchange, 45%. Outstanding Alsatian distiller; outstanding Alsatian grape

Capreolus Raspberry Eau de Vie 2024 £134 (375ml) The Whisky Exchange, 43%. Raspberries successful 4 dimensions. The others are each amazing, too.

Somerset Apple Eau de Vie £19.95 (350ml) Master of Malt, 40%. Unaged pome brandy from good Somerset producer.