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 single malt Ruz! (‘red’ in Breton) whisky is a vibrant and impactful dram, and true to its name, the red shows through in the glass. Ruz! was conceived as a means to “wash” Lénaïck’s stock of Bordeaux casks, absorbing and extracting the trapped St-Émilion wine from the wood in order to regulate the barrels before use in aging his Mesk whisky. Years later (duration varies at Lénaïck’s discretion, but is at least three years), Ruz! emerges a far more subtle, integrated, and complex whisky than one might expect, once again evidencing its creator’s skill and foresight. The base whisky is unpeated Bretagne barley malt, an ideal frame for the juicy and woody flavors contributed by the barrels.

Flavor Profile: Rich and dynamic, with an explosive start and a long tail of jammy red fruits, raisins, soft tannins, and vinous qualities harnessed from the Bordeaux dormant in the barrel’s staves. The bright and juicy character is seasoned with grain and spice from the local malt.

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