Fruit spirits are a diverse and global category of spirits. Calvados comes from Normandy, where apples and pears grow better than grapes. Once the juice is extracted and fermented, it’s distilled via column and pot stills to create a characterful spirit before aging in oak vessels.
In this session, Rose Brookman will give an insight into the history of calvados and explain the stages of production and how this affects the final product. She will also be tasting calvados and explaining the typical flavour and aroma notes that you can expect to find. Bring a glass and join in!
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Uh good evening and welcome to this wct bite size on what is calvos my name is Ed I’m a wine and spirit educator at the wct school in London uh the wct is the leading provider of wine spirit and SAR qualifications and I’m proud to announce that in February 2024 we’ll be launching
Our qualifications in beer as well we offer all our courses through a network of over 800 approved program providers in over 70 countries and in 15 languages uh to find out more and to sign up for one of our qualifications and please visit our where to study page at
WS global.com a few housekeeping points before I introduce our speaker uh this session is going to be recorded and will be later available on demand at our W events Hub YouTube channel where you can enjoy all our previous webinars on demand um please use the question and
Answer box to submit any questions and we will answer as many of these as we can at the end of the presentation and at the end of the presentation we’ll also be sending out a short feedback survey it’ll be great to hear your thoughts on how to shape our future
Events um so without further Ado our speaker today is Rose bugman who apart from having the great honor of teaching me my level three award in spirits uh runs the mixing class which is the world’s leading independent supplier of WS Spirit qualifications um over to you Rose thank
You Ed thank you so much hello I’m Rose um I’m here today to talk to you about Calvados so I’ve been in the hospitality industry for about 18 years and I’ve been running wct Spirit courses for around five years now and I love Calvados uh because Calvados is made
With one of my favorite raw materials and that is Apples um I’m from the UK I’m calling from London now and uh it’s one of the only fruits we’re really good at making in the UK so it’s a shame we don’t have more Apple brandies here uh
But we’re going to talk about one of the most famous ones which is Calvados so we’re going to talk a little bit about how Calvados uh is made a little bit about it history and then we’re going to end on a little bit of how uh we drink
It um I am drinking a lovely uh dupon Calvados today well a Twist on a Calvados um if you’re drinking anything please let us know in the chat or the Q&A what you’re drinking or what your favorite Calvados is so let’s get started with what is Calvados well
Calvados is a spirit made from apples and pears sometimes it’s all apples sometimes it’s all pears and sometimes it’s a mixture it’s always aged in Oak we’re going to look at the different Barrel sizes when we talk about the post distillation operations it’s made in
France going to show you some maps in a minute Anda of exactly where it is made and it’s protected by three separate appellations now uh you might have heard of GIS geographical indications this is the European way of protecting a spirit category doesn’t just have to be Spirits
It could be food it can be textiles but it’s saying here it’s made here and this is why important the place and the people um or why they’re important to its production the AOC the appalachi to origin control a is the French version of that GI and they’re very very very
Restrictive or on production um highly legislated for um to protect the spirit categories now Calvados has three aoc’s the first is the Calvados AOC the second is Page AOC and the third is calvus Deonte I do want to apologize for my French pronunciation as well um I don’t
Speak French fluently I wish I did um but I’m really sorry if I’m offending anyone there um the appalation for Calvados actually covers a million hectares and it’s got over three million trees in it so covers a really big area uh so let’s have a look at some
Maps of France here’s France on the left here and these are the fruit Spirit regions of France now these are not the only Protections in France for spirits but these are the three main ones for fruit cognac was the first region to get an AOC quickly followed by armanac in
The 1930s and then Calvados got his first projection in 1942 uh on the right here we have a picture of the Calvados region now these regions are showing us exactly where our raw material can be grown for production so the whole area in green that is the
Calvados AOC the other two A’s page is a slightly smaller one that covers this region this is where our raw material must be grown for page uh and here is the duon region now page this region um makes up about 29% of production the DU fronte about 1% and the whole of the
Rest of the Calvados region that makes up about 70% of production so three very different regions uh page is protected and well known for the traditional Styles um using for very traditional methods D fonte that was given protection because it’s use of pears and Perry amazing so the inter profession
The Appalachian sidri again apologies the idac um this is the um body that looks after Calvados it doesn’t just look after Calvados it looks after the peir and apple Brandy and uh ciders um in the regions of France um and here’s a couple of stats from them to give you a good
Idea of kind of the size of Calvados now Calvados sold 4.8 million bottles in 2021 compared to C to cognac um they sold 250 50 million bottles so it gives you kind of an idea of the size of how much smaller than KAC it is um and
Actually armanac is a very similar size uh to Calvados production they sold about 5 million bottles in 2020 um export accounts for about 50% of all sales of Calvados and it’s exported to over 90 different countries now Germany drinks about 14% of um export sales Belgium about
8% the UK where I live only drinks about 2% of those sales um sad we need to drink more in my opinion but yes so it gives you a nice outline of uh the Calvados region now let’s just touch on the history quickly the history of
Calvados where did it come from um well the area in Normandy it’s always been well known for the production of cider and peries um and for the geeky people who like the climate stuff um and teraa um this region is got soil that’s made of flint and Clay so it’s very good at
Retaining water but actually there’s a lot of rivers that allow for that drainage to happen um it’s on the coast it gets quite different summer so the climate changes very quickly in the summer um but it gets Gulf Winds which are warm they’re moist and that means
Winters are quite mild um and because there’s winds as well this actually helps with um infection or pests insects diseases that sort of thing it really limits them but for a really long time they were growing lots of apples and peirs making lots of lovely ciders and
Paries but it wasn’t until 1553 that cider was first distilled in the region supposedly by Lord goberville was the first person to uh distill and actually it was written by um in a guy called Charles Pico Diaries he would uh write about lots of different things he was
Doing looking after orchids all of his hobbies and one of them was distillation which he did with his friends uh and supposedly was the first person to distill cider into Apple Brandy and actually obviously it became very popular because by 16006 Normandy distillers had created their own
Corporation a guild um to move forward and protect the category but for a really long time nothing else really happened in Calvados um in relation to laws but obviously a lot of stuff happened in France colonization happened France spread around the world so did
Trade um and then in 1790 uh we had the French Revolution and after 1790 Calvados um was given the name the department of Calvados was created in Normandy um then there was a really long time before it actually became officially Calvados so parisians started drinking it they started recognizing it they started
Giving it the name Calvados this apple Brandy as a really casual name for the region and for the Spirit uh and then it wasn’t until uh in 1942 that we got the official name in law in the first AOC which was for page um the 20 years
Previous to this uh had been the wars or the World War I and the lead up to World War II um and the government had a monopoly on alcohol so they actually forced all of the spirit producers to start making neutral spirit for weapons production uh and the locals were very
Worried that they would lose their uh tradition of making these spirits and so campaigned and got the AOC protected uh at the same time 10 other regions became the Calvados AO which is uh not quite an AOC but still had regul ations and protections this was updated in 1984
When all of those that AO became the AOC of calados uh and then the last protection came in in 1997 for du fonte to really recognize its use of peirs and paries and production so we’re going to look at how we make it now and if you’ve ever
Studied with the w um for Spirits uh specifically we like to look at production in in four stages raw material fermentation distillation and post distillation so we’re going to go through those four now and we’re going to start with our raw material which hopefully by now is obvious apples
And pears these are a raw material and these are CER varieties apples and pears so which means they’re very small cooking apples very big eating apples middle size CER varieties very very small there are over 6,000 varieties in the Calvados region but they all break down well the apples do they break down
Into four categories uh and it’s our recipe our blending of these categories together that is going to make our final product it’s very similar to making a mash bill so if you’re into whiskey especially American whiskey we’ll have our Mash Bill our recipe of grains that will affect the flavor of the final
Product and it’s the same here so Bittersweet apples these are apples uh that are very well balanced they make the base of what you’re going to ferment you’ve then got bitter apples these provide tannin and they provide body behind the spirit we’ve got acidic um these give freshness and then we’ve
Got sweet uh these provide flavor and they’re also going to provide a large amount of sugar and we need sugar to make alcohol pears are also going to do very similar to the Sweet they’re going to add flavor and they’re going to introduce more sugar into that mixture of raw
Material now these are harvested the annual Harvest and they are generally harvested in four batches from September to December sometimes even into January and this is going to be based on variety now harvesting can be done by hand or machine if you do it by hand
Maybe you’re just picking them up of the floor as they fall off the tree maybe you’re poking the tree with a stick they’re going to fall out into your basket or my favorite way the machine this is a tractor this is very cool if anyone’s been into the streets of
Seville you might have seen these at certain time of year but the tractor has arms that grab onto the tree trunk and out pops an umbrella an upside down umbrella and the tractor vibrates the tree so all the apples fall off and you collect them in the umbrella and take
Them uh to processing I really like this because I don’t know if anyone whiches mids murders it’s a very quaint murder mystery TV show based in the south of the UK and someone got murdered by being shaken to death by one of those machines um would recommend great TV show good
Sunday afternoon watching it’s not scary or anything mild Peril that’s all it is anyway um so there we go we’re harvesting our raw material next stage fermentation so fermentation is where we add yeast and create alcohol specifically ethanol that’s the alcohol we want and flavor now fermentation we do have some laws
Around this it’s a minimum of 4.5% ABV after fermentation ABV alcohol by volume um that would be nine proof in the states so minimum of 4.5% after fermentation now there are minimum fermentation times for Calvados for page minimum of 21 days which actually quite a long time for Spirits categories um
Globally you’re looking at Whiskey kind of 24 48 maybe a little bit longer so to say 21 days and de fronte 30 days is quite a while and some people even leave it up to a year before they finish fermentation uh now what’s something that’s not allowed in this category is
Chaptalization now this is the addition of sugar um we’re not allowed to do that if you add sugar you’re going to increase your yield at the end and we don’t want to do that most people want a lower ABV and we’re looking at kind of more like five to 6% ABV after
Fermentation um if we compare that to like the cognacs and the AMCs we’re looking more like kind of 7 to % ABV um yeah so the way we’re going to make this is that we’re going to get our fruit we’re going to grate it we’re going to
Mash it up and then we’re going to leave it to sit for about four hours and then we’re going to press it to get that juice the solids are going to be got rid of and they’re going to probably be fed to livestock you do see some people
Flushing water through the solids to get the last of those sugars but a lot of people don’t like to do that because they think it loses concentration of Flavor now there is something cool that happens after about 3 or 5 days um and that’s the pectin it starts to
Coagulate and it rises to the top of the fermentation and CA causes what’s known as a brown hat and that kind of allows for really slow stable fermentation to happen now Calvados is a mi of apples and pears now there are rules that we aren’t covering I’m just going to flag
That there are a lot of rules we not we don’t have time to cover today uh but the basics are Calvados apples and pears page is a maximum of 30% pears and duon is a minimum of 30% pairs some of these can be up to 100% pairs now with the
Duon you’re not allowed to add anything that’s going to slow down or speed up fermentation so we’re not allowed to use sulfur dioxide we’re not allowed to use nutrients or anything like that so fermentation next stage distillation this is how we make it into a spirit distillation is where we’re using heat
To separate what we want from what we don’t want so this ation um you got the choice of pot or column Stills in the Calvados region um we got a picture here of a pot steel we’ve got a picture here of a traveling column still as well
These are very cool now the basics of pot steel distillation it’s a direct fired steel it’s a pot steel we’re going to put our um fermented alcoholic alcoholic liquid into that pot we’re going to turn the still we’re going to heat it up Vapor will rise up the still
Into our condenser where it will cool down back into a liquid the idea of the first distillation is to get rid of the things that we don’t want like a lot of water there are things that do not go through distillation so color any bits
And bits that might still be left in uh the fermentation and what we have is something called uh little water Petty which is about 30% ABV we’re going to put that into a pot still for the second distillation might be a different one might be the same pot still but the
Second distillation we works exactly the same we turn on Vapor appears goes up the still through the line arm across into the condenser and we collect it but on this distillation we’re going to do what’s called cutting and that’s where we decide what to keep the first stuff
That comes off the still is called the heads this is full of things that we don’t like methanol is one of the key ones methanol we need to cut out from our Spirits because if you decide to drink it you’ll go blind or die so we do
Need to cut that out otherwise you will have no returning customers and that’s not fun so we make a cut and all that involves is starting to collect in a second tank that’s where we’re going to collect the heart the heart is the stuff that we like it’s full of all of the
Ethanol we like all of the flavors that we we like from the raw material from fermentation um and towards the end of the distillation we’re going to make a cut to the Tails again tails is full of stuff we don’t like things like propenol butanol fusal alcohols unpleasant
Flavors so we’ve got the heart and the heart is the bit we want that the is the bit we’re going to take forward to post distillation operations now the maximum distillation strength for Calvados across the board is 72% avv this is very similar to Cognac and armanac where it’s both
72.4% so these are going to create quite pronounced Spirits now the column Still Still creates quite a pronounced Spirit um and it works by you heat The Cider up before it goes into the still in what’s known as The Cider heater imaginatively named and that cider is going to be heated up
It’s going to enter the column still very much like an amoniac distillation the first part of the column still is to get rid of uh the bits we don’t want so the water anything that doesn’t turn into vapor so color any bits and it will go through this column and and then into
A second column which was is going to then sort out the head the heart and the tail for us and we’re going to have three different Taps to pull off head heart and tail now there is a limitation on this one as well you’re allowed to
Put through about 250 hect in 24 hours through these Stills which is still quite a bit but that does control production and these are continuous Stills the column Stills so you can keep them running as long as you want now pidash you are only allowed to use double pot steel distillation
When it comes to Du fron te you are limited to using the column still only and you’re allowed to Max move 28 plates now plates are part of a column still that allow you to get better separation and a more refined Spirit but 28 plates isn’t a huge number in the grand scheme
Of distillation so there we go distillation at the end of this we will have our lovely Spirits ready to go into post distillation um our final stage of production so post distillation what are we allowed to do well we have to put it in Oak containers that’s one of the laws
Oak containers um and we’re allowed to use different sizes sometimes you see quite small uh barrels these can be 254 even 600 liters they’re relatively small but then we have the Fooda these are between 1 and 10,000 lers these are really big this picture really doesn’t do justice how big these
Are um and there’s a couple of interactions that happen in the barrel um and the size of the barrel is going to have an effect the key one is surface area and interaction with the oak so when you put a spirit into the oak that spirit will be absorbed by the Oak and
Pushed out and absorbed and pushed out it’s like the oak is breathing it and as it gets breathed out that spirit is going to extract stuff from the wood now if you got a small Barrel you’ve got more surface area interacting with the spirit which means you can have more
Flavors we’re going to be looking at things like vanilla baking spices clove maybe some nuts maybe some caramel on a bigger Barrel you got less surface area so you’re going to have a much more subtle Oak character to it another thing is Angel share hopefully you’ve all heard of the Angel share you
Leave your stuff in the barrel come back to it several years later and see that a chunk was missing so we thought the Angels had come down and taken their share but in the process had touched the spirit and made it taste amazing if you got a bigger Barrel
You’re going to lose less to the angel share if you got a smaller Barrel you’re going to lose more but the angel share generally is around 2% uh in the Calvados region which isn’t too dissimilar to some of the other French products um but stuff that evaporates
Out anything that’s left is going to concentrate so your flavor is going to concentrate your color is going to concentrate and so the longer you leave it in Barrel the more concentration of flavor you’re going to have we could see more development of flavor as well with
The longer uh time and Barrel as oxygen gets in and creates lovely complexity so the rules for Barrel aging or for Oak aging rather Calvados and page is a minimum of two years whereas defonte a minimum of three years there’s a couple other things we can do Post distillation by the way uh
Adding caramel coloring is allowed adding sweetener is allowed we’re probably going to use apple juice to do that um and uh you can add a small amount of sweet uh well sweetener I said uh coloring and water these are the three things that we can add uh post
Distillation there are very limits uh strict limits on the amount of everything you’re allowed to add uh yeah so labeling terms uh if anyone works with any of the French products you will know uh French Spirits there are lots and lots and lots and lots of
Labeling terms um so let’s see if any of you remember these um maybe think back to cognac or ryac if you studied it maybe look at your RAM agricol but vs very special TW pom three apples I love that labeling term TW Ed three stars love that labeling term as well these
All are labeling terms used for spirits that are a minimum of 2 years old that’s the youngest these Spirits can be well for calvos and and P then we’ve got Vu and reserve two labeling terms that we can use for three years old this is the youngest that du
Fronte can be then we’ve got the vo very old VSOP very Superior old pay V Reserve four years and then lastly we’ve got EXO extra old orage Beyond age trille reserve tayu and Napoleon these are all six years old if it does have an age statement on
The bottle the age statement is the youngest part of the blend and there’s another one non RIT uh that means no water is added so it’s essentially cast strength now we’ve learned about how we make it um and maybe you’ve got a very lovely Calvados at home we can taste the
Apple from the raw material the pear from the raw material we can taste the fruity fermentation flavors as well that are really going to enhance that fuess we can taste the barrels the vanilla the baking spices maybe it tastes like apple turnover or pastry well what are we
Going to do with it how are we going to drink it well great idea to start with as an appar for a digest drink it on its own drink it with coffee after dinner great way to appreciate some of these Spirits especially if you’re new to it
This one’s fun a true norand this means Norman ho um what you do is you have a calados between each course as a pallet cleanser maybe I suggest this for uh Christmas Day uh as a good start maybe give it a go see how the family feel about it maybe
Buy a selection of them and have a different one for each course now one that’s really relevant for this season is hot mold cider now as Ed said um I ran the mixing class if you head over to our Instagram page last week I posted a recipe for hot mold
Cider um cider apple juice calados my recipe did have gin in it if you’re fancy putting another booze in it if not take that out put in more Calvados um and then I recommend putting something to give it nice and warm and spicy so fresh chilies Ginger and whatever spices
You fancy Starin nutmeg cinnamon cassia uh options endless I would recommend heating up um on the hob but don’t make it boil just make it warm um a really nice one to have at this time of year now if you prefer classic cocktails the side car is well known as a cognac
Cocktail so cognac lemon juice and orange lure very nice soap out the cognac sticking Calvados instead really nice classic easy to make cocktail and this one I haven’t actually tried but I read about it and I really want to try it because I love cider um
Ice cider top make a slush puppy with your cider open up your cider stick it in the freezer make it into a slush puppy stick it in a glass with a straw and then on top uh pour some Calvados very nice desperate to try that when summer comes if you’re interested in learning
More about Calvados obviously you can book on to the wct courses we learn about it level um two and three um but here’s a couple of things that I’ve used as really good resources the Calvados book uh by Henrik Matson it is a little bit older now um but it’s got some
Really great information there about the history um How It’s Made and the different brands uh the idac now this is where I got a lot of my information from a lot of my stats from and the photos from this is a great website and then drink Calvados is a great website um but
Yeah there are loads of good calad does out there I do have to recommend one if you’re not really sure where to start in the UK um Avalon is a really good one um specifically as they’re looking from the sustainability angle uh and the um saving of the bees they use uh they’re
Making uh paper bottles or card bottles I suppose and you can get that a most retailers and it’s very affordable so if you’re looking a nice one to start off your collection I definitely recommend that uh but Ed and I are very lucky today to be drinking a dupon have you
Tried it yet and what are your thoughts I Ro thank you so much for for giving me a sample it is absolutely delicious like Super Fresh super fruity what’s your thoughts yeah I really like it so this technically if isn’t a Calvados I cheated a bit this is
An OD Deedra it’s been finished in a coroni CK um which means it’s not a Calvados but it’s 100% apples a page they make it on pot Steels and it’s aged for six years and toasted 400 liter barrels um 25% of them are new and then
It’s aged for 5 months and 220 l maoni rumas lovely cooked Apple stewed Apple but it’s got this kind of underlying sugar herbaceous grassy note to it which uh yeah really lovely it’s like it’s almost like a dessert in itself it’s it’s not sweet but it has that kind of
Like tart tatan like caramel sugar kind of coating absolutely phenomenal um really really love it um so uh we’ve got a few questions that have come through uh since You’ been speaking so uh a question about yeast um and um is cultured yeast always added or is it
Possible to ferment with only indigenous yeasts like wine so what typically happens is that people are using ambient wild yeast and actually it wasn’t until very recently in the grand scheme of for Calvados that you could actually use cultured yeast uh so it’s still a very
Uh new thing so a lot of them especially people like page and defron are still working without adding yeast um which is quite exciting and why we’re looking at interesting flavors and long fermentations yeah yeah um the next question uh does the brown cap during fermentation function
Uh similar to floor in Sherry uh where it protects the juice from oxidation or spoilage I’m gonna say I don’t know the answer to that question because I know nothing about wine um so Ed do you know so what I would say is most of the time when you’re having a active fermentation
You’re already quite protected from oxygen because carbon dioxide is going to be produced as a byproduct and that’s going to form almost like a a a a layer carbon dioxide being heavier than oxygen is gonna is gonna exclude oxygen from that fermentation once fermentation is finished then you need to be worried
About oxidation so maybe it’s uh it’s as it is to protect it so maybe it’s because we’re having such long fermentations you don’t want other bacteria and stuff to land on it and start creating flavor so it does create it’s meant to create stable um so maybe
That is something to do with it but it’s a really good question and yeah I need to do more research on that cuz that is yeah great question I would I would say that it would it would be acting as as a bar barrier as well so it’s it’s Extra
Protection is always always good right um next question about Oak is there specific wood permitted for Oak Aging for example um cognac uh has an association with limousine Oak uh does it specify the type of oak or can other Woods be used it’s got to be Oak I’m
Assume it’s French Oak that is part of the AOC that I haven’t read but with all of the French OES they’re pretty much very strict on the type of Oak you have to use so I imagine it is written in there the type of Oak that is expected
To be used or the variation of Oak and I imagine it is French Oak Only which is why this is doesn’t count as a Calvados because we put it into a different Barrel um yeah interesting question next one about producers do they typically disclose the kind of makeup of apples
Versus paars um beside the AOC rules is the ratio based on flavor or cost or or what have you um I think they do and I think you can find out that information the big producers it’s probably harder to and typically you you’re using there’s kind of typical numbers
Typically using about 70% of those Bitter Sweet um 20% acidic and 10% bitter um I think the smaller producers are much more likely to shout about it um and the bigger producers are probably less likely so but that information is going to be available I think yeah for
Example the one that we were uh we we’re currently enjoying I did check on the website earlier and it did have a kind of breakdown of their their usage so um yeah produc websites is where you that kind of information um very good um what is the
Average kind of ABV you’d find in a Calvados oh 40% so we’re looking full Spirit 40 42 something like that that’s all the ones I’ve been having is what we’re looking at yeah yeah full strength Spirits um and could you just go over again the kind of big export markets for
Cal oh yes so so the biggest is Germany um let me see how many I’ve got written down I’ve got a couple of written down the idac website is great for this information they’ve got a whole pie chart you can go and have a look at so
Go check that out uh but the key ones I picked out um France drink 50% of it Germany drink 40% Belgium 8% yeah those are the key ones I picked out uh but you can go and see that fun uh pie chart um in on the idac website
Yeah um and then other questions who are the the biggest and best producers that we should go in um that’s a great question so dupon is one I I come across Christian druin uh very nice um avelyn I said it’s very interesting that’s a kind
Of a relatively new UK brand uh but what I recommend is heading to the Calvados website uh Calvados and the other ones that I advertised um drink Calvados um and you can see a map and they actually this is like the dream that I’m going to definitely do next year I keep saying
This is to cycle they show a cycle route and is going to take you through some of the really big producers plus some of the really small producers and it’s a really good route you can do on a bike obviously take a couple of days and don’t get drunk while doing it don’t
Recommend that um but stop in different places and you should be able to hit some of the really big producers and you know a nice variety there of styles you can hire a tandem that sounds great yes that now I’m up for it um so yeah thank you
So much Rose that was really excellent really informative thank you so much for everyone also who’s attended this evening remember webinar recordings will be available on our events Hub so make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up to date with all our
On demand events um and to again just to reiterate if you’re interested in studying with the wct uh to sign up for one of our qualifications and Spirits or or other categories uh please visit our where to study page at w global.com and they’ll find your local provider um and
Thank you so much and have a lovely day
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