Christian Drouin

A Normandy farmhouse producer at Coudray-Rabut, near Pont-l'Évêque, double distilling in copper stills in the Pays d'Auge. Some thirty cider-apple cultivars go in — roughly half bittersweet, a fifth bittersharp, a fifth sweet and a tenth sharp — and no variety is ever named. Ageing is in small used casks, including former sherry, port, Rivesaltes and Banyuls wood, chosen to limit tannin. 1960 is the year Christian Drouin senior took over the Fiefs Sainte-Anne farm, so the date is a farm's. Its Domfrontais is the one bottle here from the third Calvados appellation: about 60 per cent perry pears, column still, three to five years.