More about Laurent Cazottes

Laurent Cazottes makes eaux-de-vie that taste so much of their fruit they can seem like a trick, and France's top chefs have noticed. Michel Bras called him "a poet of eau-de-vie."

Distilling runs in the family. His father, Jean, was a traveling distiller who took his alembic from farm to farm across the Tarn, and Laurent still uses that still today. He qualified as an artisan distiller in 1999 and set up on the family land at Villeneuve-sur-Vère, in Gaillac country northeast of Toulouse. He grows his own fruit there on clay-limestone soils, farmed organically and biodynamically and certified by Nature & Progrès since 2003. Beyond the orchards he keeps vines of rare local grapes like Mauzac Rose and Prunelart, plus a garden of more than 200 tomato varieties.

What makes the spirits special is the handwork. Fruit is left to over-ripen and concentrate, then stemmed and seeded by hand. Hundreds of thousands of pears and plums go through his team's hands every year. The eaux-de-vie are bone dry with nothing added, and the range runs from Poire Williams and greengage to grape eaux-de-vie, plus liqueurs made from oddities like green walnut and tomato. Serve them cool in a small glass rather than ice-cold, so the fruit can show.