| Eau de vie in Brittany. |
Eau de vie from CiderIn Brittany cider has an extended life cycle.
Every year new cider is made - started in November and December but, first, last year's undrunk cider must be recycled as spirit. So in December you will see the contraption pictured on the left - a legal mobile still. Their arrival is announced in the small-ads in the local papers This one is on road between St Anne and St Dolay, Morbihan. On one side is ranged plastic carboys of cider in steel mesh pallets, and on the other a woodpile. You deliver some wood and some cider in the morning. In the evening you return, to collect the empty carboys, and little barrels filled with your own eau de vie. C'est bien simple.
The product is called gout by the locals in this part of Brittany, and can be bought only if you know somebody, and then only if you can get it before it runs out (early summer !). This still steams quietly during the day, taking in cider, and spewing out the waste - which looks like rusty water - into the stream. But its days are numbered, because the distiller's licence expires with him. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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