by At lunchtime, when the sun is tanning the sidewalks and people of Trouville in Normandy in northern France, I do the sensible thing: I’m at Les Vapeurs, an exceptional classic brasserie on the town’s sheltered harbor.
The restaurant is almost 100 years old and offers a menu worthy of a pilgrimage to France. There is fish soup, snails, salads, fish, shellfish and a list of meat dishes, including Andouillette (that literally hearty, fatty sausage) and tripe. And of course, since we are in a traditional corner of France, there is hardly any sign of vegetables.
I am in the middle of a wonderful lunch and am concentrating more on the sensible – indeed, essential – things to do if you want to enjoy a good lunch in this part of the world. I am in the process of creating what you “The Normandy Way”literally “a Norman hole,” or as this greedy guest would put it, room for more food. Here’s how it works: You take a glass of Calvados and drink it. The liquor, a distillate of apple cider, cleanses, burns and soothes the stomach, and you’re ready for a few more courses.
At Les Vapeurs they pour a homemade Calvados, a portion from a large bottle into a small glass, and you’re done. In my case, after a few plates of oysters and then mussels, there is a communal plate of Breton sardines, a main course of locally raised veal – Schnitzel de veau Vallée d’Auge – and some chocolate mousse. Then I might come back to the Calvados idea, but that’s a decision I’ll make in due course.
Right now, this Calvados has done an excellent job, the spirit has unfolded its digestif magic, not to mention the alcoholic revival that my Joy of life to further heights.
This is the alchemy of a glass of Calvados, which has long been my preferred midday liquor. When offered brandy, I have long been trying to switch from Cognac to Calvados. It has always seemed to me a purer, lighter, less heavy and drier option; the word “Calvados” seems to contain music.
It is all the more exciting to see the actual Department Calvados. And I was there for the first time, with the mission not only to taste the drink, but also to find out how it is made.
Not far from Trouville-sur-Mer, a town inextricably linked to Deauville (an elegant place full of exquisite half-timbered houses with steep roofs, a seafront with a famous long seafront and art deco beach huts, a huge beach and a racecourse), there is a Calvados house. After a short drive into the countryside, you will find Christian Drouin, a Calvados house founded in the 1960s. It is now run by Guillaume Drouin, who took over from his father Christian Junior in 2004.
“My grandfather, Christian Senior, was in the fertilizer business,” he tells me, “and after buying a farm in Normandy with lots of apple trees, he decided to make Calvados just as a hobby. In the first 20 years of the business, my family didn’t sell a single bottle.”
But in the 1980s, Christian Junior moved back from Canada, bringing his young family with him. He took over the farm and decided to turn his father’s hobby of making exquisite Calvados into a business. Today, the company employs 28 people and its drinks have won numerous gold medals. Their passion is creating great drinks: “We don’t strive for quantity,” as Guillaume puts it.
The company acts as both a manufacturer and Dealerby producing Calvados from its own 20 hectares of orchards and buying an additional 100 hectares of apples owned by independent growers. The resulting spirit is produced entirely under the Christian Drouin name.
“We use 35 varieties of apples,” he explains. “The apples’ flavors range from bitter to bittersweet, sweet and sour, and they contain more tannins than dessert apples. The wide variety of varieties ensures that each year, if a particular apple variety has withered, has an insect problem, or produces a low yield, this does not affect the overall quality and volume.”
The apples are not picked from the tree, but rather collected from the ground to ensure they are harvested at their ripest. After the harvest, which takes place between September and December, the apples are washed, pressed and juiced. Some of this juice is kept back and mixed with a young Calvados to make the drink. pommeau – a light aperitif with an alcohol content of between 16 and 18 percent by volume. The remaining juice is then fermented into cider. And while some of it is kept for sale as Drouin Cider, the rest goes through two distillation processes in the still.
At this point, the apple brandy, the Calavados, is made. But before it can be bottled, it still has to travel further. And that journey is determined by two factors: wood and age. All over the farm, in various old barns and sheds, there are barrels, some of them hundreds of years old. In them, the brandy matures and takes on its character, both through the taste of the wood – there are barrels that were once used for whiskey, others for sherry – and through the effects of evaporation (up to 4 percent of the liquid can be lost over time). “We call this the angels’ share,” says Guillaume.
After the merger with another Calvados from the 1960s HouseLelouvier, in 2003, Christian Drouin is today a major player in the region.
As we taste different bottles, Guillaume explains how the oak barrels provide variations in color, flavor and tannins. “Every day I wake up wanting to tell the world about the wonders of Calvados,” he tells me as we taste an 18-year-old that smells of almonds, roasted apples and has a wonderfully smooth complexity.
Back at Les Vapeurs, I spot a Christian Drouin on the menu. After the chocolate mousse, there’s hardly anything that can put a hole in my stomach, but its smoky elegance makes my love for Calvados, an incomparable midday drink, grow even deeper.
Lelouvier is available at Boisdale and buy at Harrison’s.
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