{"id":2112,"date":"2015-06-15T21:31:32","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T01:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/?p=2112"},"modified":"2015-06-29T21:46:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T01:46:36","slug":"france-2015-brittany-monday-june-15-distillerie-warenghem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/?p=2112","title":{"rendered":"France 2015 \u2013 Brittany \u2013 Monday, June 15 \u2013 Distillerie Warenghem"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a whiskey distillery in Lannion (called Distillerie Warenghem) that we\u2019ve known about since we arrived and, although mentioning it to both sets of friends \u2013 all of whom were highly interested \u2013 somehow we never did find the time to visit.\u00a0 Well, today was the day, even if it was only the 2 of us and even if only 1 of us likes whiskey.<\/p>\n

Because of our fiasco trying to find the Palais in Perros yesterday, we left earlier than we needed to and, wouldn\u2019t you know it, the GPS worked just fine.\u00a0 We were there early and had to hang around outside for about 20 minutes.\u00a0 There was the most interesting rock that had been painted by a local artist which was an homage to \u201cMan\u201d and was called \u201cThe Dance of Time\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Whiskey production is fairly recent in France (\u201crecent\u201d being compared to how long wine has been produced here).\u00a0 This particular distillery is just over 100 years old and is owned and operated by 3rd<\/sup> generation of the Warenghem family.\u00a0 It\u2019s also quite small, both in size and output.\u00a0 It\u2019s so small, they cannot buy large volumes of malt from French sources and have to rely on the Belgians to supply it in small quantities.\u00a0 Regardless, they must be doing something right as they have several awards proudly displayed in their showroom and they produce enough to fulfill French needs as well as some other countries, including Quebec and Ontario in Canada.<\/p>\n

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Warenghem runs a tour and tasting every hour on the hour in the afternoons, which is why we went.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been on several wine tours and tastings, both in France and Canada, but have never been to a whiskey facility.\u00a0 And, I should mention that all this is free, with no obligation to purchase.<\/p>\n

Whiskey production takes about half a day before the golden liquid is poured into barrels for a 3-year nap.\u00a0 Barley is fed through a hopper into a vat where the malt is added, along with water.\u00a0 This mixture is transferred to another vat where something happens with temperature, then to another vat where something else happens with temperature, all to do with sugar content. (I realize this description is a little vague, but the tour was in French so I got the gist but not all the details.)\u00a0 The warehouse where the barrels are stored is quite impressive but I was disappointed that we didn\u2019t get to see the bottling process as I enjoy watching production lines.\u00a0 (I know, kinda weird.\u00a0 I used to work in the pharmaceutical industry and, at least once a month, I would wander down to production and take the self-guided tour spending most of my time watching the pills spill into bottles, cotton get stuffed into bottles, caps be secured onto bottles, labels be affixed to bottles, bottles be counted and dropped into shipping cartons, cartons be sealed and labeled and rolled off to be shipped.)\u00a0 But I digress\u2026<\/p>\n

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(The hoses are used to move the liquid from one vat to another.)<\/p>\n

Back in the showroom and we were able to taste as many different whiskeys as they produce.\u00a0 I tried, I really did, but I still don\u2019t like whiskey.\u00a0 Steve, however, was quite happy and ended up buying 2 bottles of their award-winning Classic \u2013 one for him and one as a gift.\u00a0 (Just in case you\u2019re wondering how fit we were to drive\u2026 the samples were in those teeny, tiny plastic cups that medication comes in in hospitals and we only got about 1cm in the bottom of this vessel with each taste.\u00a0 All together, I might have had 1 oz and Steve might have had 2 ozs.)<\/p>\n

After a quick snack at home, we were back at the beach for a little R&R \u2013 like we haven\u2019t had enough of that yet \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 \u2013 followed by our turkey leftovers from a couple of days ago, followed by an apple flan with fresh strawberries.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what it is about this vacation but I\u2019ve had more dessert in the past 3 weeks than I\u2019ve probably had in 3 years!!!\u00a0 And I\u2019m loving it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a whiskey distillery in Lannion (called Distillerie Warenghem) that we\u2019ve known about since we arrived and, although mentioning it to both sets of friends \u2013 all of whom were highly interested \u2013 somehow we never did find the Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,3,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brittany","category-france","category-whiskey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2123,"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112\/revisions\/2123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maureensmusings.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}