This is Cocktails Distilled, a podcast that takes your favorite spirits and liqueurs from the still to the cocktail glass.
In each episode, we talk to distillers and creators about particular expressions that their brand have released, what they are, why they were created, and in what cocktails they can be used.
Are you ready to understand what's in your glass, or perhaps should be?Welcome to Cocktails Distilled.
If you travel high into the French Alps, between the cliffs of Vecours and the peaks of Éclair National Park, you may be surprised that besides some of the world's most beautiful mountain terrain, there is also whisky.
Surrounded by the Tarravese Mountains sits La Horte Glass, the world's oldest organic whiskey farm and distillery, established in 2009 by Frédéric Rival.
Nestled in such beauty, it's not surprising that the distillery aims to put terroir at the heart of the taste of all of its liquids.To find out more, we talked to Rival about grains, terroir, and what it's like to distill in the French Alps.
Thank you for joining us, Frederic.
Thank you for the invitation.
Now describe for us the landscape in which your liquids are born.
I think you said some words about the landscape.
The distillery is located in the heart of the French Alps, so this is a place where we are surrounded by mountains and peaks from the Alps, and this is a high plate, a landscape of farming, but in high altitude.
because this plate is one of the most high agricultural plates in Europe, in continental Europe.So this is a very pristine area.We are not so much inhabitants in there.And we've got a wonderful connection with elements by there.
Now, your background is as an agronomist?
What led you to distilling?
I'm agronomist, you're right, but I'm also, and maybe before, I'm a wine and spirit lover.And I felt into whiskey at the beginning of the millennial.And
Looking at how the whiskey is produced by this time, I was surprised that nobody was speaking about the crop.Nobody was speaking about the provenance.The industry was talking about distillation, was talking about maturation.
And for me, the raw material, the place, is the essence something that you can drink or eat.Because when you drink or you eat something, this is coming from nature, obviously, and it will also be part of you definitely. because you will absorb it.
And so for me, this connection, this cycle with nature has to be done and is very important in the way of thinking what we can produce.
So I decided to create from scratch a farm distillery, meaning this link to the terroir, this link to the raw material for me was missing.So my vision was to try to create a whiskey that can, has a quest of terroir, something like that.
Now, most distillers talk about the flavor of their liquid coming from the barrel, but your brand is focused more on the terroir.How much impact do you think terroir really has on something like whiskey?
I think it fully depends on the way of your thinking your product. Probably the terroir may have no impact at all if you don't take care, if you don't look at the terroir in itself.
If you are producing a very clear and soft and simple spirit and then you put it in very expressive barrels, for sure you wouldn't find any terroir in it, in the final product.
If you take care about the crops you are using, if you are at each step of the process, filling is the typicity of the grain, of the place.
And if you are working in order to magnify it, then at the end of the process, you will have a whiskey where you can feel definitely the terroir.
Do you think the whisky world has lost sight of its agricultural roots and forgotten that connection with the land?
Yeah I think so and that's why the reason why of Eau de Glace is for me this loss of connection.I think this is more than a whiskey issue.
This is a society issue to have lost this connection to the, to the natural cycles, to the limits, the boundaries of our planet.But for me, it was, it is very, very, uh, you can see that for showing the whiskey industry, most of the whiskey producer.
And when you, you go to a show, When I go to a show presenting my whiskey, for sure someone will ask the question, what is the part of the cask in the whiskey expression?It is 80%, it is 90%.All the time you've got this kind of question.
This means that for people, whiskey is about oak, barrel. But a whisky, this is a crop eau de vie.This is a cereal eau de vie.For sure, this is aging barrels.But in the balance, for me, there's something wrong.
And so this is the project of Eau de Glace, making everything
from the soil to the bottle is trying to find equilibrium, balance, in all the steps and all the characters that this wonderful product can express through the crop, through the malting, through the brewing, through the distilling, etc.
So yes, for sure, the connection has been lost.And yes, for sure, the reason why of old glass is tried to make this direct connection through a drum.
Now, the brand talks about micro providence.What exactly do you mean by that?
You asked me if the whiskey industry has lost the connection.And when I started my journey, I can remember this figure about Scotch production.Scotch production was using in one day of distillation the whole production of Scotland in barley.
What does it mean?It means that 364 days per year The raw material was not coming from Scotland.So there's no provenance at all in the whiskey industry.Globally, I mean.At the scale of the Domaine des Hautes-Glaces, every sink comes from the area
maximum 15 kilometers from the distillery.
So yeah, everything is, has been harvested in the place in this mountain plate surrounded by mountain in this area.So this is the first step of the provenance.Everything is coming from the place.Yeah.But then we've got a micro provenance
project and trial, a little bit like in the wine industry, because we are working plot by plot.Very small piece of land with their own specificity.
in term of soil, in term of climate, climate because the exposition, east, west, north, and in the mountain, it is very important.So as a winemaker, we're making whiskey, single-plot whiskey, and this is micro provenance.
And time after time, year after year, we are now able to to see that and to taste that this micro-provenance can have huge effects on the profile of the whiskey at the end of the journey.
Okay, that's interesting.What sort of effect?
It's a little bit hard to explain because, for example, in the wine You can feel the plot effect, but it has been built by decades of producers that are fully transparent about their vineyard and their wine.
about the vintage, about the plot, and so the words have been built by the community in itself, learning all together these subtleties and the way of expressing it.But for example, We have launched this year what we call an exploration.
So this is two whiskeys, the same seed has been used, two different plots, and then it has been malted with the same recipe, brewed fermented and distilled the same week and put in very old casks.And after three years, the casks have been swapped.
So everything should be the same.And the only difference is the plot.One plot is at the bottom of a big cliff of chalk. west exposure, and the other plot is on a rhyolitic soil, this is volcano soil, and east exposure.
And the two whiskeys are very different, and I would say that one is more mineral, intense, fresh, earthy, and the other one is more The spice is not the same.This is a more oriental spice.
This is more Creamy more so very different a little bit To take the comparison with the wine world With the Chardonnay grape, you know this kind of wine the grape a little bit the difference as Chablis for the Chardonnay and the Mont Rocher
in the Burgundy.You know, one is very mini world, the other one is more baker, yes, bready, buttery.And I think the only difference between the two cuvées, between the two limited editions, is the plots.
Now you've stated that you've turned environmental constraints into a source of creativity.How is that expressed?
So we are fully organic, and we are concerned by environmental issues.And so we don't use pesticides, herbicides.We don't use any chemicals at the distillery.So this put constraints on the way of your processing things.
And this, for me, also opens your mind to many things.For example, in terms of agronomy, it is very important to make crop rotation on the fields in order to prevent disease, in order not to kill the soil potential.And so on one field, on one plot,
year after year, we are sowing barley, but also spelt, rye, then grass.So as we are using many crops, we also working with these crops in order to transform them into whiskey.
And that's why, from the beginning, we are single malt producers, but we are also single rye producers, but we are also single spelt producers.So it's both Nobody was producing spelt.A few were producing rye.
And because of our constraints, because we are also, we like diversity, we have opened new fields, new opportunities in terms of whiskeys through this approach.And another example,
more for packaging reasons, but it's also important, packaging in terms of sustainability in the whisky industry.And you know when you brew, then you have draught.This is what's left after the brewing.And the draught
We use it for, we compost the draught and then we use it in the field.But we are also drying it and we are making the top of our closure, the top of the cork of our bottles with this material.So sometimes, because you are
thinking about how to create circular stuff, how not to waste resources.You invent new stuff as a new type of top for the bottle, as new whiskeys, as single spelt, etc.
Now in that same vein, I believe you recently reduced your bottle size from 70 centilitres to 50 centilitres.Is that also for the environmental impact of transport?
Yeah, we have changed the bottle for environmental purposes.And going from 70 to 50 centiliters was quite a challenge.
Because obviously, for the same quantity of whiskey, if you've got smaller bottle, you will have more top, you will have more labels, etc.So the idea was to reduce Yeah, it was to reduce our footprint, but also to reduce the size of the bottle.
And the reason of the reduction of the size of the bottle was more about how whiskeys are tasting whiskeys, whiskeys that you need to take your time to appreciate them. This is not big consumption whiskeys.
So the small size is more adapted to the way where our whiskeys are drink.And we also have a lot of limited series, as I said before. As a whiskey drinker, I like to drink limited series.
And so I like also when the, so the bottle is not too big because I like changing and I like the diversity.So that's why the 50 Centiliters.
So you've actually thought about the end user.
Yes, exactly.That's a little unusual. And by doing that, we have changed the type of glass using what we call white glass.This is a transition glass with a very low emission carbon footprint.We have made a new top with our draft.
and also we have changed the shape in order to reduce the space when you send the bottles.So all in all, changing the bottle has improved the global carbon footprint with about 40% of reduction. in terms of carbon footprint, which is quite good.
And there is also an index for eco-responsibility in the packaging industry, and taking into account CO2, but also water, also heavy metals, things like that.And we have reduced this index for 80%.
So the move was a great move for environment as well.As well as a salt for the end consumer.
Now let's talk about some of your whiskeys.You have two main expressions.Tell us a little bit about the Indigene.
So Indigene, this is a single malt. I don't know if it's clear for an English person, but indigene means coming from the place.Indigene in French, but also in English.
Indigene means native, because everything is coming from the place, the raw material, the water, but also the energy, because we are using wood and local renewable energy for distilling.
And I would say that Indigene tried to reinterpret the Scottish single malt tradition, but in an Alpine way, rooted in the place.This is a kind of aromatic snapshot about the place, because this is a vat of more than 100 distillates,
from different vintages, from different plots around the distillery and so we have created this wonderful vat that we call the mother vat and through indigen you can feel the
both the type of aroma that you will find in the old glass whiskeys, but also you can feel the impact of time, because this is a mix of whiskeys from four to 12 years old, and there is something about time inside as well.
Now, they're made on a barley base, I believe.
Yes, sorry, yeah, a single malt, yes, on barley.
Now, your second main expression is the Valson, which is more of a rye base, I understand.
Yes, you're right.Correct.Valson is a single rye, meaning this is 100% rye spirit.And Valson is a very cool product.It is more an eau de vie. than a whiskey because it is not aged in barrel.
So this is clear, and this is rested, not aged, but rested in neutral continents as stainless steel, but for years.So this is also a vat of different vintages from 1 to 11 years old of clear spirit of rye.
And the idea was to create a nice spirit dedicated to these special flavors of the rye.And so this is an atypic product, somewhere between a fruit eau de vie, between a mezcal, and between a whiskey, somewhere by there.
or perhaps even what the Americans might call moonshine.
No, because it's not, yeah, but it's not a moonshine because it has been rested for years, so it's quite different.And frankly, it's more closer than a mescal than a moonshine.Because rye can be very spicy, very earthy, a little bit smoky as well.
And this is a triple distillation.For the whiskey, this is double distillation.And for this product, this is a triple distillation.And this distillation brings something very special in terms of complexity and texture, and with the time as well.
So yeah, this is a very nice product.
Now, aside from your permanent expressions, you also have a limited edition collection that you've entitled Episteme.Tell us a little bit about that.
So Episteme, this is a collection of limited edition.Episteme means something like knowledge, know-how, something like that, science.And as we do everything from the soil to the bottle for 15 years now, we have developed a kind of expertise about
the impact, the influence of each step of the process of the whisky.And we are creating limited editions about these influences.The idea is
The collection is structured as a series that we call explorations and each exploration strives to showcase the influence on a specific factor.For example, I talked before about this exploration about the plot, the two plots.
But we also make some series about the influence of the casks.So this is the same whiskey, then the same plot, the same vintage, and then we have just changed the cask so we can taste the difference. bring by the cask.
And so this is a wonderful and unlimited collection of limited series, because the world of the whiskey and the process is mysterious and huge.
So it's an invitation to taste all this stuff and all the know-how that we can develop at the Domaine des Hautes-Glaces.
Now, these expressions, and I kind of love this, are denoted by shape.So squares, triangles, circles, and stars.What do the shapes really mean?
It depends on the exploration, actually.So there is a code name for each exploration.And for example, the last one was called not the last one, but the one I talked about for the plots, this is called R18P23.
R means this is rye, 18, this is the vintage, P means plot expiration, and 23, this is the bottling year.And then you've got the shape, square, for the Montaigui plot, the plot at the bottom of the cliff, and the circle, this is the plot of my farm.
But exploration after exploration, for example, we have made also an exploration about cask, and the exploration is called the
B-15, C-23, and B-Bronle, so this is single malt, 15, this is the vintage, C for cask expression, and there is a circle expression, and this is a cask of Crozet Hermitage, and there is a triangle expression, and this is a cask of a haute glace of whiskey.
So this is to distinguish in an exploration, the different expression and the different factors.
When people buy your whisky, what do you want them to take away from their experience with the brand?
I hope that they can feel in the liquid what I try to explain here.I mean this connection to the environment because I think, I believe that our whiskies are vibrant whiskeys, you know, you've got a lot of experience in it.
And I hope this will talk to the to the proper experience of the drinker.Making the connection with the memories of the form of the grandfather, making the connection with the smell of the of the forest after the rain.
Yeah, I think this is the this is the challenge.
Now if people want more information on the brand they can of course go to your website which is hotglass.com or connect with the brand via your socials.
And we'd also like to thank you for listening.Be sure to visit cocktails2steel.com to access the show notes.And if you like what you've heard, we'd love you to subscribe, rate, or give a review on iTunes.Until next time, cheers.
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