Monday, 23 August 2010

My last drop…

My vieux bottle of Calvados Roulland made by Sarl Pomypom at Ferme Nouveau Monde, Cambremer, Normandie, France is all drunk up.

I shed a tear for the sweetest nectar I have ever tasted. It truly was a living flame, both apple and alcohol, with a 40% proof. As you can see this is my final glass and I’ve turned the bottle upside down to salvage and savour every last drop. I even bought a tiny, expensive, very special, cut crystal snifter to drink it from. I’ve been rationing myself to a single shot every few weeks to make it last the two, maybe three years that Calvados Roulland has been my constant companion.

I’ve never been to Normandy. This bottle of joy was a gift from a cherished friend. I thank her (and Monsieur Pomypom) for the constant anticipation that it has brought me since receiving it.

I’ve drunk other bottles of Calvados, lots of them, but somehow this one was different - a single sip and I was in an apple orchard, lay in the shade of a massive apple tree, gazing up at the bright red apples, sheltering from the heat of the bright Normandy sunshine.

The days will seem greyer with its passing and no more will I spend imagined time in my sun-dappled French orchard.

Talking of which if any of you are ever in Cambremer and happen to pass Ferme Nouveau Monde, please pop in and get me a bottle or two.

Cheers!

10 comments:

  1. I've never tasted calvados but I feel your pain at the passing of a much loved tipple - port gets me that way also.

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  2. I love calvados, there is something so French about it.

    Calvados and civet of pork, superb.

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  3. The bottle looks really interesting. The label looks handwritten, it looks like the kind if bottle that would wash up on shore with a pirate map in it.

    Can't you buy a new bottle on the net?

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  4. http://www.pomypom.com/ seems like a good place to start looking for the replacement ;o)

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  5. Cheers chums - now why didn't I think of that!

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  6. Alan Spence e-mailed:

    Can I make with all sincerity a suggestion. Why don't you do yourself a favor and purchase yourself as many bottles of Sarl Pomypom's Calvados Roulland you think you will need and can reasonably afford. You deserve it. Don't buy it over the Internet but get over there, visit Sarl Pomypom, shake his hand and have a chat over a couple of glasses and return (If you really want to that is) with your life enhancing bottles of unbridled joy. Think about the glass, you can't use it for anything other than your favorite Calvados.

    Alan

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  7. Tricia Kitt commented on Facebook:

    GO you fool! bring back a case!
    p.s. no point buying booze in Corfu any more - Greek VAT currently 22.5%

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  8. Al Spence e-mailed:

    Not at all, it was my pleasure. No offence intended but don't bother getting me a bottle of Monsieur Pomypompingpangpong.

    If on the other had it was a Mademoiselle Pomypom who had made the Calvados that would be a different matter altogether. The trouble is that the males tend to smell of Gauloises and damp grass. And interestingly enough I have never met one that was not in some degree bow legged. Another interesting fact about our gallic male cousins is that if you look closely at their nostrils you will see that they have an over abundance of proboscis hair, which for some unknown reason is always ginger in colour.

    Not only that but the above mentioned nostrils are always proportionally to big for their oversized bony noses. Have you ever found any hairs in your special glass?

    Normandy isn't even part of France!

    Viva La Mademoiselle Pomypom.

    Thanks Alan

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  9. I think Alan's idea of going is a wonderful one. If you go you could stay at the Gite/Chambres d'hotes that my cousin and her husband own+run in Domfront? Tell them I sent you ;o)
    http://www.laterooms.com/en/p3875/pvPVNKF4/hotel-reservations/84189_belle-vallee-domfront.aspx

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