Marion LMDW.jpeg
Marion LMDW.jpeg

Mar. 19: La Maison du Whisky's Marion Attardi tastes us through Version Francaise...

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Fellow Drammers!

When - March 19th, starting at Noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 21:00 in Paris.

Have any of you tried whisky from the Ninkasi distillery? Aikan? Glann Ar Mor? Artesia? Unless you happened to be at a special store in Paris within a couple hours or so of when these bottlings have hit shelves a handful of times, almostly certainly you have not.

As we get ready for our upcoming Drammers Paris event next month, I am reminded that — for whisky fans like us — no trip to Paris is complete without checking in at the great La Maison du Whisky shop in Paris, and ideally their Golden Promise bar later in the evening. Easily one of the greatest whisky shops on the planet, they not only have an extraordinary collection of some of the oldest bottles you’ve read about, but also often the first single casks from distilleries you haven’t heard of. Every time I visit, I find 10 things I’ve never heard of, and make a note to research them later. Even so, when I first learned of the Version Francaise bottling series, I was dumbstruck — an entire series of bottlings, each from a French distillery I’d never heard of before. While they occasionally release whiskies from places like Armorik and Eddu that are known outside of France, more often their offerings are your only chance to try whisky from so many smaller French distilleries. This set us on a quest to meet the team behind it, and ultimately a couple years (and a global pandemic) the chance to do this very special master class with Marion Attardi, their head of product development. And the timing is perfect, as they’re about to release their first batch of these single malt whisky (and armagnac!) gems here in the United States! This online tasting will feature 7 expressions, 5 of which will be released in the US any second now, and the other two are only available in France. More specifically, we’ll be tasting these:

  • Artesia 2018. Single malt whisky from the Hauts-de-France region. Single cask, 1 of 430 bottles. 50% abv. (Not available in the US)

  • Ninkasi 2017. Single malt whisky from the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region. Single cask, 1 of 670 bottles. 46% abv.

  • Armorik 2014. Single Malt Whisky from the Brittany region, single cask, 1 of 255 bottles, 50% abv.

  • Aikan 2017. Single Malt Whisky, Petit Lot. 46% abv.

  • Glann Ar Mor 2010. Single malt whisky from the Bretagne region, single cask, 1 of 276 bottles, 51% abv. (Not available in the US)

  • Chateau de la Beroje 1995 - Armagnac (Bas-Armagnac), 1 of 300 bottles, bottled at 42% abv.

  • Maison Saoubis 2007 - Armagnac (Bas Armagnac), single cask, 1 of 208 bottles. 46.1% abv.

We hope you can join us for this very special tasting. This event has been a long time in the works, and we have a LOT of people to thank. First and foremost, our longtime friend and local La Maison expert Jan Warren for making this possible, of course Marion and the team at La Maison for joining us live from France for this event, and going back farther, to our friends (and fellow Drammers Paris members!) Emilie, Cristian and Paul, who work or worked as whisky experts at La Maison du Whisky, turned us on to this special series, and arranged a meeting for me before the pandemic to meet some of the people involved. It’s been a long time in coming, and we’re very grateful and proud to host this tasting.

Cheers,
Charlie and Drammers Club