"FrenchSpirits" news and stories

The French drink 150 million bottles of whisky a year with 3 billion bottles produced each yeart, 1 billion of them in Scotland. Now a French champagne grape producer thinks there is room in this massive market for a little French Whisky.

Thierry Guillon saw that, besides grapes, his home region is a major barley producer - barley equals whisky. He now faces rising demand for his Single Malt de la Montagne de Reims.  Demand has pushed production up to 60,000 bottles this year. Thierry says that even Scots and Japanese (both major producers and consumers of malt) are heading to Reims and Troyes to buy their malt.

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The Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac has revamped its website. It is now available in seven differnet languages with a four-colour design to highlight different sections of interest.

So in the 'red section' there is a directory of producers and merchants and if you hope over to 'yellow' there are details on the rules producers have to complie with when making France's most famous spirit, plus dull stuff like export statistics and the like.

News and Events are in blue, where, in French only, you can read about the Fête du Cognac 2006 which takes place from 13 to 16 July. And for want of putting them elsewhere it is in the blue section where recipes using Cognac can be found. All in all a very nicely designed website.

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