Eau de vie

Ian and I are off to France again this weekend to choose our roof-tiles and sort out the windows to the house. We try to stay somewhere different each time to get a feel for the area. This time we are staying with an English couple who run a gite complex about 2 miles away. It will be good to meet them. In an email they alluded to something that I have heard before about the hamlet and that is that it has one of the few remaining legal stills (distillery). Apparently when they changed the law in France to outlaw home-stilled spirits they allowed those who were currently producing to become licenced and continue but did not allow new places to start up. These original licensees are almost all deceased now but rumour has it that the local man is now in his 90s but continuing to produce. My theory is that he probably died several years ago but they mummified his body to fool the inspectors. We will have to investigate further.