Julien Fremont's Calvados is a Réserve, meaning it is aged for at least 3 years in oak barrels. He uses old 400 litre barrels, ensuring that the overwhelming sensation when drinking it is apples not wood. Despite its 44.9% ABV the intense flavours from the underlying fruit carry the alcohol with ease. A truly remarkable hand-made Calvados.

Julien Fremont is a cider maker of rare dedication, working from his family's ancient cidrerie in use since the 1750s. His process is entirely hands-on: apples picked late in the year are aged in a loft to intensify flavour, then pulped and pressed using a 1920s machine his grandfather bought, recently restored after catastrophic damage. Fermentation happens in various vessels, and the same obsessive attention to detail that defines his ciders carries through to his spirits.

It is difficult to imagine a place more removed from the industrial distilleries where bulk Calvados is made. Everything here is hand-crafted, unhurried, and rooted in a landscape that has been producing apple spirits since the 1750s.