Naguelann ‘Mesk Tantad’ Buckwheat & Malt Whisky de Bretagne
Naguelann ‘Mesk Tantad’ Buckwheat & Malt Whisky de Bretagne
Embodying the very spirit of the historic Celtic nation of Brittany in northwest France, Naguelann is the vision of master distiller and blender Lénaïck Lemaitre. The maritime Bretagne peninsula has long been distinct from the rest of France, and the Naguelann whiskies (the name a playful tribute to Lénaïck’s hometown of Languenan) build a bridge across the channel to the shared culture of Scotland. Lénaïck is driven by the terroir of Brittany—the unique history and artistry of the place and its people. He digs deep into its Celtic roots, applying Scotch techniques with absolute precision, delivering something as personal as a fingerprint—an honest representation of the Breton spirit.
Lénaïck came into the whisky trade first as a bartender, developing a passion for malt whisky upon a tour of Scotch distilleries. Later, through his bottle shop in the historic fortress town of Saint-Malo, he began purchasing, blending, and aging whiskies, honing his skills and palate. Eventually, his reputation earned him attention from local distillers looking to collaborate with a skilled partner in order to develop the story of Breton whisky. Before long, he was purchasing a small pot still and building a tiny distillery in his former neighbor’s old stone home. Success led to expansion, necessitating the removal of planks from the ceiling to accommodate new equipment, creating a tightly-packed, quaint whisky workshop, without more than a few feet in any direction for the nimble Lénaïck to shuffle between components.
Dour, Koad, Gedal—Breton for ‘Water, Wood, Time’— is the elemental maxim that defines Lénaïck’s approach. Each whisky is distilled with a specific vision, going directly into their intended wooden cask for their entire term. “I only have recipes,” Lénaïck explains. “It’s not cask finishing, it’s cask starting.” This technique takes an incredible amount of courage—Lénaïck forges his own path by deciding the direction of each whisky at inception, and carefully guiding its individual path through his cellar. Once aged, blended, and rested, every Naguelann whisky is minimally filtered by gravity, then downproofed with Bretagne natural mineral water before bottling.
The Mesk (‘blend’ in Breton) series of whiskies are distinctive in their incorporation of the iconic local buckwheat grain in the mash. Called eddu in Breton and sarrasin or blé noir in French, buckwheat features prominently in the cuisine of Brittany, especially its famous galettes. As it pertains to whisky-making, though, buckwheat is notably far less efficient than traditional barley—both in terms of yield per hectare at the farm, and in alcohol-producing potential in the still. That said, its impact on aroma and flavor is profound. Even at 25% of the blend, the buckwheat’s inclusion in Mesk Tantad (‘burnt blend’) is evident, contributing fruity and floral esters, supported by nutmeg and chestnut. The buckwheat and peated barley distillates for Mesk Tantad are aged in first-fill ex-St-Émilion barrels, while the unpeated barley whisky is aged in new French oak barrels. As with all the Naguelann bottlings, all grains are sourced and malted locally.
Flavor Profile: Rich and leathery on the nose, with a velvety plush palate of red fruit, sweet smoke, old wood, and tobacco. The proof accentuates the high-tone aspects of the buckwheat, contributing an unmistakable Breton accent.