French Booze ProjectA drink in the colors of Limoges!

French Booze Project: a drink in the colors of Limoges

A native of the Haute-Vienne region, Laurent Mandon is the creator of Limoges blue gin, a drink in the colors of the City of Porcelain. Find out more about his career and the history of his distillery.

Laurent Mandon

Discover his career and the history of his distillery.

FROM LIMOGES TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

I’m 33 years old and grew up in Limousin, near Limoges. I graduated in real estate and then in market finance in 2010, which was a very bad time for the sector. After that, I traveled/lived in around forty countries. I always went off on adventures without planning what would happen next.

Then at some point, I asked myself how I could share this, all these experiences, and I started exploring the possibilities. Writing a blog, a book or making a youtube channel … would have been the most obvious solution. But I chose to open a distillery to creatively share my travel memories.

AN INSPIRING DRINK

That’s how my first gin, Bleu de Limoges, came about. In a way, it retraces all my travels, thanks to the harmony between the 16 botanicals that make it up, gleaned from all over the world. It also allows me to express my Limoges roots through the color “bleu de four”, characteristic of Limoges Porcelain and our identity.

The second gin, Hostile, refers to the difficult moments we can encounter on our travels: high altitude, jungle, desert, heat, cold, solitude, and so on. Two new gins have also been launched.

A LITTLE LOCAL PRIDE

This project has also led to a number of collaborations in the area: I distill beer from the Lémovice brewery. The result is a beer brandy called “Essence de bière”. Other spirits and collaborations are planned before the end of the year.

Hostile gin won a gold medal at the Lyon 2021 international competition, and a silver medal for Bleu de Limoges. I also took part in the Frankfurt International Trophy: Bleu de Limoges and Dank won gold medals, and Hostile achieved the feat of placing in two categories: gold in the new western dry gin category and a grand gold for best dry gin.

So all three regular gins won gold medals. It’s particularly important to me because I didn’t just use the name of our town to make a product, but to create a drink whose quality has been recognized. I wanted to give our city something to be proud of.