Coldorak's whisky blog.
After the seven unpeated French single malt whiskies reviewed on Friday, we continue exploring French whisky, but this time with seven peated French whiskies. On the menu, the Naguelann Start, bottled for the Malt in France French whisky show 2025, Fontagard TORB 9121-1, La Piautre d’Eire et d’Alba, the Kornog Single Malt and Santez Erwann 2025, the Vilanova Shed Signature #1 and the Armorik Yeun Elez Jobic single malt.
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Over the past few years, I’ve built up a small collection of French whisky bottles, having been fortunate enough to taste a wide range of releases—mostly across the three editions of Malt in France, the French-whisky-focused show held in Rennes on the first weekend of April since 2024.
My original plan was to gather them all into one large review. However, as the number of bottles kept growing, it made more sense to keep tasting and split the feature into two parts. This first instalment focuses on unpeated French whiskies from distilleries across the country; Monday’s review will turn to the peated side of French whisky.
Naguelann is a brand of whisky from Brittany created in 2014 by Lenaïck Lemaitre. He started maturing whiskies distilled by neighbour Breton distilleries, allowing him to release his first expressions in 2015, with Cuvée Grand’Pa, and in 2016, with Ed Unan. If he started maturing new make made by others, he’s now also distilling himself. Lemaitre also owns a whisky shop and bar in Saint-Malo called ArKoad, where you can buy his creations as well as whiskies he bottled as an independent bottler, and taste many other whiskies from everywhere around the world. Let’s review his first release, Naguelann Cuvée Grand’Pa Eilvet.
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On Friday the 10th of April, I organized a small blind tasting with friends I had sent samples to almost a year ago. Lockdown due to the Covid-19 crisis is keeping us to meet and go to festivals, but it does not prevent us for sharing whisky with friends. Back in November 2019 we did our first kind-of-blind tasting with 4 Yoichi, and last Friday we went to another country, my (and Julien’s) country: France. On the lineup: an Armorik and Eddu, from Brittany, and an Elsass from Alsace. So like last time, we knew what drams we were going to taste, but had no idea of the order. Myself included. But let’s start by introducing the distilleries.
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