After two years of absence, La Maison du Whisky’s cognac range Through The Grapevine is back. Its new design returns its attention to grapes and guest producers. Launched in 2017, the range offers a showcase of the Cognac terroir through unique cuvées carefully selected from exceptional estates and bottled at cask strength. The reference to the soul anthem “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” is no happenstance. Indeed, in the same way this song, made famous by Marvin Gaye in 1968, has been covered by countless artists, from Creedence Clearwater Revival to Ella Fitzgerald, Through the Grapevine revisits the standards of cognac, creating deeply authentic variations. These rare and sometimes unusual bottlings are the result of many hours of patient research by the teams at La Maison du Whisky. For this new series, they tasted 112 samples from 25 producers and more than 50 vintages…

This year Maison Drouin brings us a contrasting duo of Calvados. The oldest, distilled in 1972, is 42 years older than the younger, produced in 2014. Selected from the Drouin family’s oldest vintages, the 1972 dates from a period when the distillery had not yet begun selling its cider brandies. These were only released on the market in 1979, once it was decided there was sufficient stock to enable their sale. While the very old Pays D’Auge reveals complex aromas of stewed apple that reflect its wonderful maturity, the younger bottling contrasts this with the freshness of stillcrisp fruit. The difference in age is further accentuated by the 8 year old’s original finish in casks from the Swedish Mackmyra distillery, following seven years of maturation in used barrels. This collaboration with the famous single malt produced just north of Stockholm follows the launch in 2020 of their Äppelblom whisky, which was matured in… Christian Drouin Calvados casks.