All right, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm your host, Pat. I handle all things, especially spirits related here at Binny's. With me today is Shannon, formerly of Skokie, now of the communications team. What's up, Shannon? Hello, Pat, how are you today? I'm good, how are you? I'm doing excellent. You ready to talk some cool French spirits today? I am. Yeah, pretty cool stuff. So we have a special guest on today, and that is Alexandre Gabriel, owner of Maison Ferrand, founder of Maison Ferrand, correct? Well, yes. Okay. And also master blender of Maison Ferrand as well, right? Most importantly, master blender, right? We're going to talk about the thing we drink today, right? Yeah. So Maison Ferrand, quality French spirits company, producing some fantastic natural fruit liqueurs, known for the Cognacs, of course, the Pierre Ferrand Cognacs, but also plantation rum. You see a lot of plantation rum on our shelves at our stores, we're big fans. Pretty cool. So how did you get into this business? Well, that was 30 years ago, so it's been a while now, 30 years this year. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. Originally, I grew up in Burgundy, in the vineyards of Burgundy, and so on a farm with the South Burgundy making wine, so I've been harvesting child labor since I'm a young kid. And we used to love harvesting, because that was the two or three weeks you didn't get to go to school, and the teacher would come and harvest with you. I would have loved that. That was something, so harvesting was always a great moment. And at the time, all the harvesting was done by hand, obviously, right? And so when my grandfather was also what is called bouilleur de cru, somebody who has the right to distill his own production. So in Burgundy, there was mar de Bourgogne and fin de Bourgogne. As you know, fin de Bourgogne is the wine that's distilled, where the mar is the must that is distilled. I remember my grandfather was eight years old, saying, trying to teach me the things of life, and showed me the distillation of mar de Bourgogne, and he's trying to impress on me. Very stern guy, and he says, mar de Bourgogne, you first taste it with your ears. I was like, what? You put it in your ears? That would be pretty confusing at eight years old. As he shows me, he says, no, actually, you know, when you lose your material, you know, for mar, it's actually the must, right? And he says, when it's silent, it's fresh, the mar is going to be good, but it's got insects on it, and it's all over the place. Then it's going to be an off taste that you're going to get from this. So your ears were the indication of the quality of the raw material, I guess. So that was my first little foray, you know, as a distiller, I guess, or being exposed to distilling. At the time, they were little Collins, you know, very similar to a very primitive ambulance, you know, the Collins that would go from one place to the other. And so I grew up on this farm, and you know, you learn later on what you're about, and you know, you learn to deal about that person that's yourself. And I realized I don't take authority very well, and I thought, you know, I've got to do something, you know, and I love farming. This is my dream was to continue on the farm. My grandfather was still young, and I discovered if I want my own little shack, you know, yes, winemaking is great. So a lot of my cousins, some of my cousins went into winemaking, but I didn't see myself, you know, like making wine for somebody else. So I said, I'd better learn about business if I want to have my own little shack, you know, and at that point, you have no idea, you're super young. And that's what I did. I went to the US to learn English. I thought English was important. So I went to Minnesota because I thought, you know- Oh, you learned a funny form of English in Minnesota. I loved it. I thought it was great. That was the early days. That was the Prince, you know, I was at First Avenue. We'd went like once a month, you would be playing. So it was wonderful. I really loved it. I thought it was wonderful. And then, but I was young. I was 19 years old. And then I went to study business after that. And, you know, studying in Japan and then in the US. And to pay for my studies, put together a little company to help wineries and also Cognac Company to export. So that's what we did. And I was super young and found a distributor in New York. I was 22 years old. That little Cognac Company was somebody my family knew. That was Ferrand and there was a Pierre Frand branch. It's one of the three branches of the Ferrand family. There's three branches all together. And they were kind of selling off their stock. And I was 22 years old, just fell in love with the region of Cognac and thought, this is great farming, this is wonderful. Then the guy came to me and says, do you want to partner up? Do you want to buy in the business? And I thought, you're 22 years old. I had no clue what I was doing. I love it when you listen to people to say, I knew what I was doing. It's part of a great scheme. I had no clue. Just thought that would be very interesting. And what I liked the most about Cognac and found real fascinating is there's a relationship between really the cru de terroir and the spirit, which is one of the spirit where you have that strong connection. You have a map of the different terroirs of Cognac, and that map happens to be hundreds of years old. And so I just thought maybe being a burgundy boy, I just thought that would maybe be the reason that it had a meaning to me. And so I said yes, and I went into it, and I didn't know a little, then I know that it was going to be 10 years of hard work and not a lot of anything else. And to structure everything. And I got to meet early on the other branches of the Fong family, including a little lady that seemed so old to me. And remember, I'm 22 years old back then, and I'm 53. And this little lady living in this huge mansion just down the road, and she's older than God. She's like 65. Now I think it's young and vibrant, 65. And she's there, and I got to meet her, and she was very inspirational in guiding the way we went. And what she really instilled in me is that sense of heritage that Cognac has. She's in this farm, and she's been there basically almost since birth, a place where the Ferrand-Mainbrand family lived since 1630. Wow. And you go there, and you go to this house, and if you want, next time you're in France, I'll show you. You have archives, 200 years of archives, including… And this family, they all had the same first name, Eli, from Eli I in 1630 until Eli X, who died actually in First World War in the Dardanelles, like a doctor to be fighting there. And then the female heirs got on until this little lady, Mademoiselle, she wanted to be called Mademoiselle, never got married, and made it her duty to keep that heritage going. And things like this happened to me, I guess, and I thought that was like a mission, you know, because you got these archives dating back hundreds of years about how cognac was made, which great variety, which type of barrels, the life of an Allianz farmer. And she was very fond of her, she thinks I'm like the next guy after this guy, which was a lot of pressure. Eli the Eighth was like this greater than life guy that was born in 1839 and lived almost to a hundred. So she was almost a hundred in the end of her life. So she told us the story about this gentleman born 1839 that she got to know. And this guy was like this greater than life guy that was about creating the best Cognac there is, but got awarded best Cognac at the Exposition Universelle, the University of Shaw in 1889 when the Eiffel Tower was built for. And I love, there's a picture I could show you, it's like a selfie with him and all like James Hennessy and the old Cognac guys where he wins, it's in the book, I'll show you here. And so all this is in this house and she wouldn't see a lot of people, but she lived a very simple life in this huge mansion that's got like 25 rooms. And when I saw, just a few years back, I saw she got a little weaker just as she got older. And I said, Mademoiselle, would you like to sit down with a historian or just tell this story? This is just incredible. She remembered the birthday of all the ancestors. Wow, you have to preserve that knowledge. Yeah. She went through Second World War in Cognac and her stories and all of that. And we're like, this is incredible. And she looked at me like, sure. And I introduced her to an historian, hence this book here. And for like two or three years, they worked at it. And going on some incredible documents and finding things that are a great source of inspiration for me, including the type of wood for barrels, the grapes, varieties, and all of this. So it was kind of an honor for me. All these years I've been doing Ferrand, it's kind of been, as you know, a spirited journey for me, so to speak, with plantation also, and to be able to like kind of reconnect all of this together. And it's only, I guess, two or three years ago when she passed away, there was part of her will that we would take this further. So we created a foundation called the Ferrand Foundation, which is to protect the know-how, the ancient know-how of cognac making in her honor. And so that's kind of what took me there, where I'm here. And it's an ongoing thing. You know, it was the first days where for me, 22 and 23 years old, having no clue, maybe some kind of a talent to distill and to blend. And if I believe the guys who trained me, and that's, I guess, felt that calling. And then now putting these things together about Maison Ferrand and being able to collect. And this lady was so incredible that I decided upon her passing away to create this blend called 10 Generations, because she would always refer to these 10 generations of Eli Ferrand. So that's a very specific blend that I created, Gahan Champagne, obviously, that I created. So that's a bit of the history about all this fell together. That's absolutely incredible. It is, I feel like it was a journey. Yeah, so we have history in a bottle here in front of us, essentially. Totally, totally. Yeah, so this is the newest Ferrand Cognac, 10 Generations. Now, is this gonna be available all the time, or is this a limited release? Yes, it is. It's something I really want to carry on a bit as a symbol of what you wanted to do with the house. By the way, the house now is going to be kind of the hub of all this research that we're doing and left for people to come and visit, but people who aren't like maybe the scholars or... I mean, you open the closet, you have the evening dresses from the 1800s, you have the top hats, and you have all these documents and all this history. There's Demi Jones in the underground of Cognac. It's great that you're sharing this too. I mean, a lot of times people have this stuff and they don't care about it, and it just sits there until some generation dies, and then the next generation who doesn't care either auctions it off or sells it at a lot to some person who scraps it and sells a piece meal or anything. It just doesn't care about preserving that kind of generational history. I mean, this is really a treasure. You know, it's very true. I feel very much that way, like that it is a treasure because, you know, the only reason I think we all have these documents is because of her, because of Mademoiselle, because she felt it a duty to keep it because otherwise there would have been a big garage sales or people would clean up. I mean, we have the business card of Gustave Eiffel, the guy who built the Eiffel Tower to say to Eli VIII, come and visit this structure and just done with the first floor. That was the Eiffel Tower. So we got these documents because they were bodies with Eli VIII. And Eli VIII was this guy who wanted to make the best cognac in the world. So he's really in touch with the research that was being done before. And a bit of an eccentric guy, he had at one point, he saw Phylloxera coming and he really explained, he didn't know what was Phylloxera. Nobody knew what it was, but he saw the vineyards really disappearing. He told everybody, you see the letters. And at one point, nobody wants to listen to the better or bad news. The Phylloxera, as you know, is this little bug that destroyed the whole vineyards of cognac and other regions of France. But at the time, nobody knew what was the bug, but he said, if we invest into it, we'll find a solution. And that's Eli VIII, Grand-Père, as he called him. Instead of being better about it, you see in his letter, these guys at Hoa, he says, I'm going to stop producing cognac, like selling cognac, just producing and creating a huge stock. And he bought also from his neighbors, thinking, he was being clever, if there's not going to be any more cognac, you might as well have a lot of it. And he made a fortune, like a second fortune with this, and used that money, reinvested in that money, to be able to be one of the key guy to rejuvenate the cognac vineyards. A gentleman from Texas called Munson, we have like this portrait in the chateau that's like all dusty and so on. And it's actually a Texas guy, we had no clue, like which kind of grandfather is that, which side are cousins. But he looks a little bit different in the way he's dressed. It's not like, but maybe you think it's an extract, a different French fashion of the time. And it's actually only recently we had guys who came, they had a book about the history of Munson, which was a very important guy in Texas about great varieties and yet we discovered they were working together. All right, so enough talking about this cognac, though. I really want to try this. Of course, here you go. So the label, is there any significance with the design on the label, with the trees? So as you know, I'm the guy who makes the cognac, but we have these incredible designers, and when they came and they visited this house, this mansion house, which recently we discovered like a secret apartment in it. You know, it was just like, we wondered, maybe they were hiding people during the war, we don't know. And because I never, she never told me there was a secret apartment, like tree room apartment, and we just discovered it. Imagine you're a designer and you see this house where nothing has changed for all these years. So they got like, it was a big shock to them. And they said, this is incredible. So they said, what about the family tree? So as you see at the label, it's like a vineyard tree that branches in the ground. And actually the roots designed the faces of the different Ferrand. I don't know if you saw this, but if you look at it, it actually, the profile of the different of the different ancestors that are there. Wow, that's neat. It's like I'm looking at one of those highlights thing. Yeah, once you see it, you can never unsee it. It's right there. So that's the design that was done. But it's a celebration again to that heritage. It's a special blend. I wanted to do something that arched back to the old days of cognac. So you know what we did there? It's first of all, 99.9% of cognacs are just a flat 40%. I just wanted to be something that's a little spicier, more intense. So it's actually 92 proof, 46% alcohol. Why? It's to get more intensity, obviously, as you probably gather from the nosing at first. And then remember, we were able to prove a few years back at Maison Ferrand that cognac, it's still legal to age cognac in a wine barrel, which was an ancestral tradition. Yeah, that was a big color balloon when that happened, right? And then you know what? I love to see the fact that you're going to see more and more of these right now. So, you know, the punks of yesterday are maybe the classics of tomorrow. I don't know, but they were the classic of yesteryears. And we found there's a document in 1923 that says cognac is a grape distillate, as a wine distillate, aged in a wine barrel or a wine distillate barrel. So we just went back into this tradition. And as you know, the idea here, it's quite different from the finishes of whisky. Here is more what we call maturation. The idea is not to add another layer of taste, it's to underline, almost to equal certain elements of the cognac at that age point. I don't know if you taste it, if you're with me with this, but you got like white flowers, like almost cooked pears type of aromatics, a little bit of honey notes. And that are kind of typical of a grand champagne, that's, you know, seven, eight years. And then there's some older stuff to create that second layer of finish. But the sautern Barrel, only 20% of this cognac is in sautern Barrel. So I'm not trying for you to taste the sautern, that's not about the wine, that's about the cognac. And so it's almost like, you know, when you sing outside or you're singing in a church, like there's that eco effect is very different. So the eco effect is what we're trying to do by using the sautern Barrel. And, you know, of course, it's at a higher proof, so this is kind of magnified with intensity and with the proof. So that's what I wanted to do. It's really a tribute to Mademoiselle. She was an incredible lady that was born beginning of 20th century, that went to classical studies of French literature, so had that very formal way of speaking. And I just wanted something that was spicy and intense, that's a tribute to her. To your question, it's going to be available continuously. This is a blend that's going to be ongoing. It's beautiful. This is great. I like that it still has that classic cognac that kind of dried apricot, that peachy, this fruit, this of course, underlying grapeviness. But there is like a there's a layer of honey in there that I think you can probably attribute to the sautern barrel. You know, it's not it's not overblown with that golden raisin type of sautern character, but there's just a little bit of honeyed sweetness that adds to that dried fruit complexity that you tend to get out of a lot of cognacs. This is beautiful. I definitely get that. And I think from that honey, the floral notes like just very like white blossomy flowers, it's beautiful. And I would think that you hit the note of it being like elegant and bold just like mademoiselle. That's what we wanted to do. Yeah, and an 84 proof. I mean, you know, you're drinking something, but that's a problem I have with a lot of modern cognacs is they're they seem to be smooth for the sake of being smooth. And everyone wants, oh, I want to drink something smooth. And I think you smooth out a lot of the complexity and flavor. And that's what I've always loved about Ferrand cognacs. They've always kind of been more cognac for a whiskey drinker to me, and that they're just more intensely layered and you get some oak spice out of it still. And it's not just this flabby, smooth, just finishless mess, you know? Well, you know, that refers to a few things. You know, first of all, as you know, Ferrand is a proud producer of Grand Champagne Cognac. Now, I have mixed feelings about the guys who called it Grand Champagne, you know, the region, as you know, because it's North Champagne, not Grand. It's a tiny little region in the bullseye of the cognac region. And Grand Champagne refers to the chalkiness of the ground. And as you know, the Grand Champagne area in Cognac is classified as the premier cru de Cognac. And with Ferrand, we don't blend with other regions. So we're a classic Grand Champagne Cognac. All Ferrand Cognac is always 100% Grand Champagne. Yeah, premier cru de Grand Champagne. Of the six crews that are allowable. And that's a signature for us. That's where the Ferrand is from. And so you do get what you describe there. That's like your Grand Champagne taste. Also, we love the fruit extraction that you described. You did a great job at it. Thank you, by the way. You're welcome. And you guys are great tasters. And the idea was, yes, to be able to showcase this. And at a higher proof, like 92, you just treat more of that concentration. And I love when it's got that dry fruit. Do you describe the apricots and the fresh pear and also the honey notes and floral notes. And at Ferrand, you'll never see, the wood never takes over. Like for me, it's there. French oak adds spiciness to a drink, but it should never hit you in the face with the tannins. The last thing we want to do is barrel juice. This is not what we want to do. The barrel is there to underline the flavors. And at a higher proof, it works. I hope you agree to be able to do this, to have more structure. Yeah, and the structure is the other thing that hits me. So this is a very round, supple, but lush body cognac. And something that Grand Champagne Cognac for the listeners are known for is, they're known for being these light, delicate eaux de vie that take a very long time to mature, more so than cognacs that might come from Finbois or Bordere. This one is remarkably full and structured, I think, for a Grand Champagne. In the heart of the Grand Champagne region, you have something that some people call the Golden Triangle. There was Nicholas Faith reference to it, where you have like really almost pure chalk. So your yields, and that's where we are, are much smaller, like probably 10% to 20%, 30% smaller. It seems like nothing, but try to cut out that much of your revenue every year, you'll see what it does. It's something that- Yeah, that's significant. And yet you get that intensity of taste, that's really classic of that specific Grand Champagne. And that's something that I love. This is something you'll find through the Ferrand range. So I hate to be the American question asker here, but as a masterful blender of Cognac, we don't care about age, right? And that's not important, and what matters is how this tastes. But can you give us an average age range of what's in this 10 generations bottle? So the base, of course, you're right to mention that for us, it's how it tastes, that the taste profile you do. But the base here is seven to eight years. And we got, as you know in Cognac, we have a technique called the bonificator, like super charged, super old stuff that you use. You know a master blender, when you go see the sellers in the corner, there's like a few vats. What the guy or the lady is doing as a master blender is this super charged, super old Cognac that you use in small quantities to just run. It's almost like a concentrate. Yeah, that's like a concentrate. Only a concentrate. It's called bonificateur, that's the name. And so these bonificateur are there. So you got some bonificateur that are quite old, that would be like 20 years and so on. They come in very small quantities, but these are very specific concentrated elements. And that's one of the reasons you are a full-fledged master blender after 20 years, because to create this, which is your signature, it's an ongoing thing that you do, you need all these years to put it together. And so you take over from somebody, but then of course you always want to keep it, your little touch, obviously. My grandfather always said, because it's so humbling, when you see that you're one guy and then it's in 1630, you see these portraits that are like shoved into a drawer and one day you're going to be one of these guys or you know, it's going to be there. So it's very humbling. And he always said, you don't own a vineyard, you tend a vineyard. And I think it's very true with the distillery, you don't own a distillery. I mean, you know, you really tend it and you're trying to just do the best you can to make this delicious product that's going to make people life maybe a little brighter. Mission accomplished with this one, I think. Well, we have a somewhat new product next, right? So Pierre Ferrand has always had the Selection d'Ange, which has always been of the upper echelon. Think of those higher end XOs type of thing. And it used to be in the standard bottle, which was great, tall thin bottle on the shelf, with most of these other XOs from some, not to be named big producers, have these just overly ornate these perfume bottles. But that kind of matters though. And when people are spending up to a couple hundred dollars on a Cognac, sometimes they're going to want a higher quality, more interesting, kind of almost decorative type package. And so you've not only repackaged Selection d'Ange now, but there's been a slight tweet to it too, correct? Yeah, which made me so nervous to tell you the truth. Remember when you- Yeah, you don't want to mess with the classic. Exactly. When you're walking in the footsteps of giants, you're like, okay, but I thought 25, 30 years later, maybe I could have my little voice into this. And again, the Selection d'Ange, which is a classic of Ferrand. Humid cellar aging, by the way, so very lush, very round, yet the intensity of the Ferrand taste. Humid versus dry cellar is a very important thing with cognac. Humid cellar, what happens is the angel share is mostly alcohol, so in that case, you create more of the roundness and the full body flavors that you talked about. That's our signature. And so for this Selection d'Ange, we were there, but yet it was a 40% alcohol. And when you like the music, why not cranking the volume a little bit up? And so that's what we did with a 42% alcohol. And that's basically it that we did with this product. And yes, it was repackaged again. I'm distilling and blending the cognac. I remember I've done this job for 30 years. So for quite a few years, I was not the one that blended the older stuff and distilled the old, blended but not distilled the older stuff in there. Now that's the case. And the package was again a tribute to the heritage. The idea was when we did the 10th generation, the designers said, this is such an heritage, you should look at this again. And so, for example, the stopper, I'm just repeating what they did, but I think they did a great job. Eli the 8th had this collection of canes. So it's actually the pommel of one of his canes. I was going to ask if it was a doorknob. It's actually a cane. It's beautiful. It's got some weight to it too. That's what they did. I thought that was kind of neat. So that's the SDA, the Selection des anges, and it refers the name, and you said it well, by the way, congrats. Thank you. Selection des anges, and we call it SDA, SDR, and refers to the angel share. As you know, at that age point, it's such an old cognac that the angel share is more than what was put in the barrel originally. So you got that concentration. People forget, and I just want to throw that little nugget here, when you distill cognac, you distill from grapes and wine that's rather light. And if you were like a wine guy, like my grandfather was, he'd say, why don't you distill noble grapes, like Pinot, etc. And one day I was with him, and I had a little pot still in the kitchen at the chateau, and I distilled like a big cab, just show him. Yeah, I mean, who doesn't just have a little pot still in their kitchen? Well, it's nice, you know. And then what it did, it was really unelegant because remember when you distilled wine for making cognac, you start with nine volume of wine for one volume of fresh unaged cognac. And then with aging, three percent evaporating every year, you're just continuing concentrating, concentrating. So typically in a bottle like this, you're basically holding 20 bottles of wine. because of the distilling and the aging, so that concentration is very important. That's why you want to start with these lighter styled wine, perfume in the case of Colombo, but not the big extraction wine, because that would be so un-elegant, even as a fresh Odovie. And that's why Odovie is the fresh distilled, right off the still to make cognac. So I just wanted to throw that in, why these grape varieties are used and this wine are used is purposely. And white wine, what? because you don't want the skin extraction that would give you like, almost like Grappa notes, which is nothing wrong with Grappa, but you wouldn't want cognac to taste like that. That's the technical reasons for that choice of grapes. Now, this is a significantly older cognac, correct? This is very old. The base is 25 years. You know, there's some bonificator, again, very small quantity, but like a going, ranking up to 60 years old. Wow. So this is really, really old. We don't make a lot of bottles of this. This is, I often get this question, you know, what cognac do you take if I stick you on a desert island for the rest of your life? Yeah. And it's always tough. You know, it's like, I have three kids. Which one do you choose? You know, I'd like to keep the three of them. I think that's an easy question to answer. That's to me, it's that because, you know, as a master blender, we taste 60 to 80 different barrels a day, right? It's a really hard job. It is. It is. And we spit out by the way. Of course. Professional. And you know, what I like to do, the one that I think I like kind of need, I always set them aside because I love to read at night. And I like to go back to them on my nightstand as I read a book at night. And you know, you should do this. Like if you like some beautiful cognacs, you just take them to your bedroom and put them on the nightstand and just sip them for the rest of the night when you read or you get up in the middle. And you'll see that these cognacs will evolve. And so that desert island question is very difficult because again, I like to like have kind of variety of them to just hop around. If I was pushed, you know, sometimes I say, I'll just take a pot still with me. I'll make it there. Hopefully, there's an island where there's some grapes or something or cane, you know, something you can distill, you know, and have different expressions. But if I really had a gun to my head, that probably be like the SDA, you know, the Sédiction des Ange, because you just do have the vibrancy of something that's still there. It's not like, you know, some of the very old cognacs, they become a little flat or... Yeah, this is, it's bright and fresh, but it still has this noticeably darker character to it. And this richer, darker fruit note underneath than the 10 generations, for example. This is gorgeous. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. And that's the idea with this balance, you know, obviously, that we're looking for. And of course, extremely long finish, quite a lot of intensity. So I'm glad you like it. That's the SDA and its new clothes. And it's beautiful. Love the angels on it, too. Thank you. Well, it's two brands, you know. You gotta stay on top of these things. What a great cognac. Indeed. So besides blending Cognac, you have kind of a sprawling portfolio there in Maison Ferrand. What is your favorite product that you blend and put together there? That's like the desert island question. It is. I know. It's a tough one. No. Well, to me, it's really a matter of when and what. I'm a very passionate guy, so I'm just going to be all over the place on something because we're working on it right now. Very often, sometimes you feel you're working something. It's like the joy we have is like if we discovered a new planet kind of thing. Typically, when I worked with 10th Generation, I was just obsessive about this for months. That was my baby at that time. Then what I have to do is let it go, cool off, and then wait two or three months and taste it again. That's really an important thing because you get so enthralled into it. I like different spirits with different reasons. For example, we're talking about Cognac here. Cognac is a spirit with so much pedigree and heritage, and as far as I'm concerned, doing this for 30 years solid, I'm learning every single day. I mean, every single day. I discovered 10 years ago that in the old days, people were distilling Cognac and I'm sorry, were aging Cognacs in barrels made of mulberry and chestnuts, for example. When I discovered this, I'm like, this is crazy. And I remember my grandfather showing me some white wine aged in acacia barrels. So that was kind of like, yeah, I understand there's something beside oak, but what about Cognac? And of course, think about it. When you made barrels 100, 200, 400 years ago, do you only choose oak? You choose hardwood that would work well for the characteristics of holding a spirit. And then in the old days, I'm a believer that the 20th century, things got standardized to the extreme. And I think what I'm trying to do with Ferrand and plantation as well, is kind of undo this in a lot of ways. I mean, I know there's beautiful products throughout all the century, but there is some standardization. And so for example, you've seen a new little baby of Ferrand where we age it in a barrel made of chestnuts. Yeah, the renegade barrel, right? The renegade barrel. And purposely, I didn't say Cognac Ferrand, I said Ferrand, because actually, it's not legal anymore since 1945. And I do respect the consensus, but I couldn't help it. That was my little midlife crisis. I had to just launch that product. And you know, when you talk to all master blenders in Cognac, and a good friend of mine is 95 years old, and he'll tell you in a very like discreet voice, yes, we have this history about making Cognac and Acacia barrels, this is our own heritage. The old barrel makers remember how to make them. So is it tough for you as a blender and as a distillery owner to procure the amount of wood you need for the barrels you need? Or is it just you, you know, we pay up such a premium for French oak, and is this kind of, that's just one of the reasons it's built into the cost? It's built into the cost. Also, the reason we pay premium for French oak is because it's split instead of sowed. Yeah, quarter sawn, right, or split, yeah. Exactly. But that's one of the things, it's a managed forest. So there's a whole government organization that makes sure it's sustainable. And also remember, this other type of wood, such as, you know, mulberry, chestnut and so on, in the old days, they made this beautiful, you know, if you got married back then, you'd got like the armoire from your grandparents. So they made one for you. They call it a marriage armoire. Now you go, you know, people go to Ikea and you got a piece of furniture made of sawdust. So in that case, yeah, and by the way, a thousand pieces. Thanks to that, by the way, we can actually have this beautiful wood that being continued to grow in a sustainable way, so we can make barrels with them. And it is, they are used carefully, you know, you can reshave the inside, re-toast. I mean, there's a lot being done. And I thought like, this is crazy. We're going to make, we're going to use it for aging cognac. And I was 10 years ago, and I've worked with 15 different type of historical wood. I'm actually, I've just finished a book on the history of Grand Champagne, which was about digging back into this history. It's a process, also learning process for me. And I'm starting one about the different type of woods that were used into the cognac history, because the findings are fascinating. And as we go slowly, we're going to do these additions that we cannot call cognac. It's on the back label, it's explained. It's made 100 percent cognac. But I want to respect the consensus. You know, we call it eau de vie de vin, but it's still Ferrand, obviously. And I don't know if you, I know you tried the renegade number two, that was chestnuts, was got this sweeter, softer, very elegant tannins. Yeah, I was a big fan of it. It was fantastic. I was just wondering, what is the most interesting wood for you to age in that you're most excited about, I guess? Well, again, they serve so many different purposes. We also distilled citadel gin. For example, I made the third edition of the Extreme Citadel, and I roasted the botanicals, and I wanted to up the juniper elements in a different way. And I flashed aged it for two weeks in barrels that were made of actually juniper trees. Oh, wow. So that's super interesting. I have a soft spot for chestnut, I must say. The master blenders used to really not like it because it's a thirsty wood, meaning that when you put the cognac in it, it absorbs like 5% the first year, and it's not enough. Every year is going to take a lot more. It's like this ever-drinking wood. And so they kind of said, you know, that's costing me a lot of cognac, but that expenditure is really worth it. I think it's very delicate, very special. Acacia is good for like a younger cognac. You got these floral notes that you can underline. So they all go for different things. And of course, there's different kind of oaks that are going to have also different profiles. And to me, it's kind of the new frontier. The new frontier now, but the guys 150 years ago, they knew this. So why would we close that door to this room that was put together 100 years ago, that just needs to be reopened? And so that's what I'm doing with Ferrand. That's really great. So what has been one of the products you've blended, created there that you're most proud of? That's interesting. Let me answer this question a little differently, is that because there's two types of master blenders or master distillers. There's the guys that I wish I'd be, that are like, they distill something, and it's good and they're happy with it. And they learn to take life as it is, and I'm totally all the way around. I'm an idealistic, so I'm just dreaming of taste. I can taste just in my imagination. So when I work on a project, I just have it in my mind, and I'm relentlessly working toward it until I get there. And it's excruciating because it's like getting toward it. It's like perfection. You're just getting closer. And so that's kind of difficult. But there's products that get there faster than others. Like you got this image in your head and then boom, it's there. Ten generation worked like this for me. Maybe it was inspirations, maybe it's luck, maybe it's finding the right barrels, maybe it's experience. I mean, I've been doing this for 30 years. So that to me was like kind of, I'm really proud of it and the way it worked out. I also love to work in partnerships. To me, it's wonderful. Like the 1840 Ferrand, as you know, the original formula, 1840. This is something I did with the Devon Rich and he was kind of like, almost like a spilt shrink to me, you know, like talk to me and you know, and like say what you're telling me. And this is what I found. And that's the only Ferrand that's aged not in a humid cellar, but in a dry, like bone dry cellar. We have some of the barrels that we use to spike up, you know, like in a blend. That's one, the base is like five, six years in the dry cellar with some super old stuff in it. And that's something also that was kind of, to me, resatisfying because it was just going out of a comfort zone to do something very specific. And that partnership was a lot of fun. And as you know, I've done partnerships with other people. I love to cross knowledge like this. I've worked with over 50 different master blenders, master distillers. That's my part of learning. I'm thinking of my job, you know, like the painters of the 17th and 18th century where they would go to each other's studios and learn from another how to paint a hand or how to represent a scene or a face. And when you go and work with other master blenders, master distillers, you learn a lot. And I've worked with Dave, like for example, Dave Pickrell, you know, with the late Dave Pickrell and God bless him. And, but a lot of different people around the world. And that's also a very important moment. So I'm always proud of the, you know, we worked the OFDD over proof rum for plantation. Yeah, that had quite the collaborative crew working on that. Yeah, we were seven guys, you know, working together. And with Cognac, I'm going to do this more and more, you know, to just invite other people. The problem with Cognac, it's such a specific culture that you can borrow like knowledge. That's these experiences. And that's what makes me wake up in the morning. You know, it's just like, what are we going to work? And the more you dig about, you know, into history and you can learn some of this, that's such a great source of inspiration. That's why I get up in the morning. Drawing inspiration from history. I love it. It's the best kind. Well, the last time I saw you, you had some interesting stories about experimental distillation. Do you care to share any of those today? Sure. You know, that was actually... Dave Wondrich came to me one day. We had done a seminar in Spain into a... There was a spirit show or a bar show. And next morning, a little groggy, he went too late. He comes, we were eating tapas in this little market in Spain, and he pulls out this old document, and that was a Xerox of an old document. And he says, Alexandre, this is a Chinese still, designed 1,500 years ago, and these are all the details and the different gizmos that go with it. And he like gets dreamy eyes, and I know he's manipulating me, and he says, it wouldn't be nice, it's really dear friend, wouldn't be nice to taste what it tastes like. And you know, when I was a kid, my grandfather said, he was an ego guy, he said, always turn your tongue seven times in your mouth before you talk, so I'm like six, seven. And I said, sure, we're gonna make it. So I know an old copper smith that's retired, and by the time I said, we're gonna make it, David pulled another sheet of paper and says, and that's a medieval still that was designed 500 years ago. So what about this? And I say, okay, we'll make it too. So I'm back in Cognac and I'm talking to the team and they're rolling their eyes and they're like, Alexandre, we're really busy, you're doing different stuff. And he says, no, no, I know, but let me take care of it. And we have a guy called Manu that works at the estate that takes care of the infrastructure and so on. And we went to see this old copper smith and the guy gets really excited. There's some wooden parts, copper parts, it's called an internal cooling system like the medieval one. And long story short, we said, we're going to use it with molasses and distilled the same molasses with the same yeast and use the two stills. And then we used the Vulcan, we have an old chamber still, the western room distillery. And we said, yeah, we'll make a seminar out of this, it would be fun. And then so we distilled actually the same rum or cane distillate I should say, so to speak, showing what it tastes like. And let me tell you, the Chinese still, even though it's very ancient, and internal cooling is not easy because you got heat and cooling at the same place. You had a little spoon, you know, behind a dome, like collecting, you know, inside of it, like these drops of delicious distillates. And it was so great to run. We made, you know, we don't make it huge, we made it about a yard high. And that was such a nice little machine, a little still to run, and it made such a delicious product. Some of the Mexico stills are actually, you know, look at that, you wonder why, you know, how it went. Yeah, like some of those mezcal stills, yeah. And actually, the one that was designed a thousand years later, was almost impossible to run. I mean, to make like enough, I had to wrap wet towels around it to cool it down. You know, it was just like a big- This was a medieval still. Yeah, that was medieval, you know, I don't know, but it was kind of different. So we actually at Tales of Cocktail made a seminar on this, and we invited Ron Cooper, who came with Steve Austin, and showed us some different stills, and a good friend from Ammoniac as well, you know, Denis, who showed us like the different stills, and the idea was like, still matters, you know, like what you distill from the same product. And I thought it was a lot of fun, you know, to be able to do this, because again, what I've learned from this, you know, I've learned that like a different, like the importance of the still, obviously, the way you distill. And yes, we've made this little, little different, you know, stills to learn a little bit more. I guess it's just an excuse, which is having fun. Well, you got to have fun. If you're going to make a great product every day, you got to go to work having fun and trying to do something different, I suppose. Right? Yeah, that's true. Indeed. That's what rocks me. It makes me wake up in the morning. Well, I really appreciate you sharing these two beautiful new cognacs with us today, new and kind of new, I suppose. We're looking forward to seeing what kind of cool experiments are coming next out of the Pierre Ferrand portfolio. Wonderful. Well, right now, we have quite a lot on this table, and very excited to bring it here to the US. Very, very excited. New experimental fun cognacs with Alexandre Gabriel. This has been another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next week, I'm Pat. I'm Shannon. I'm Alexandre. Keep tasting.