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Good morning Motlies
Moonshine, Eau de Vie, Derriere les fagots, Prune, Calva. Home made liquor.
I had for around 10 years a holiday home in the Dordogne. It was a barn that was falling down that we bought for pennies (around $3000 in 1993) and converted into a four bed home. This house was in place called Travail, which had formerly been two farms, and was occupied by a hippy English couple in their forties, and an old peasant in his 60's 0r 70's called Henri.
Henri had lived in that house all his life, and we referred to him as the 4 beret paysan. He had four berrets and would wash all four at the same time and hang them out to dry
His house had electricity, but no running water, earthen floors and a wooden outhouse for a toilet that he occasionally shifted to a new spot. He grew his own vegetables and made his own wine, and rode into the town 8 miles away on a moped, always sitting a little off centre to take the weight off his hemorrhoids.
He had severe cataracts, and was virtually blind, which is the reason he rode his moped off the road when confronted by my wife coming in the opposite direction on the narrow access road.
If Deliverance had been located in France, Henri could have had a role as an extra.
Travail is in the Commune of Nadaillac de Rouge, near Souillac in the Dordogne. As the crow flies the Dordogne river flowed less than a mile from our house. Like many communes in the Dordogne Perigord, once a year they would receive a visit from the "Alambic". L'Alambic is an alcohol still mounted on a trailer, and the Stillman goes from village to village to make alcohol from a mash the farmers had already prepared.
The tradition goes back hundreds of years when landowners were given the right to make liquor with a pure alcohol content of 20 litres per year. This right was passed on through inheritance, until around 1980 or so, the Government changed the law so that as the people who had the right died, the right expired with them.
When the Alambic came to the village, it was time for a party. The alambic would usually stay for 3 days, parked at the town hall car park (NB village had a population of 118, with a mayor, town hall and secretary). On the last day the locals would set up tables and and some propane gas rings, and from around 8 AM the whole village would turn up with bread, sausages, wine and the local spirit which was Prune. The sausages would be cooked in the residual mash from the prune distillation, and by 9 AM everybody was a little worse for wear. As an incomer, I was asked to compare the quality of many different Prune liquors, which meant that in a very short time I was done for.
And of course, although everyone was limited to 20 litres which equals 40 litres at 50%, everybody made much more and the stillman closed his eyes. The excess is colloquially known as Derriere les Fagots, which translates into behind the woodpile, a traditional place to hide it from the customs.
Here is video (in French sorry) which shows a typical mobile still used in the region.
So - whats on your minds today?