The History of Calvados

Of all the areas of France affected by the war, Normandy suffered the most . The neglecting of the farms and orchard were miner to the mass destruction and devastation of houses, factories and transport not to mention the death of civilians and famine in the area. Huge support was poured into the area by [...]

The German occupation of Normandy was centred around the town of Caen in the north. They set up a sort of control centre called a “Kommandantur” in the Town Hall, which was able to make systematic requisitions of alcohols produced in France. However the system bypassed cognac and armagnac as they were “Labels of Origin” [...]

By the turn of the 20th century calvados production had increased from 56,300 hl in 1882 to well over 300,000hl in 1900. The area of Pays d’Auge was established as the major producing territory.  Most of the cider production remained where the orchards were but several cider factories settled in larger cities. Practically every canton [...]

During the eighteenth century, industrialisation had started and people had started to take jobs in the towns and in 1831 an Irishman, A Coffey designed a still that revolutionised the making of quality spirits. The “columnstill” or Coffeystill consisted of columns with a series of vapourisation chambers stacked one on top of the other. The [...]

Louis XIV, often known as the Sun King, expanded the French colonies allowing trade to develop. Art and literature increased greatly but for many of his people these were bad times, due largely to wars, poverty and crippling levies and taxes. A further difficulty was to make life even harder in the seventeenth century in [...]

France and particularly Normandy was ravaged by battles and desolation from the mid fourteenth century right through to the nineteenth century. The Black Death killed millions of people and the climate was turning colder. Farmers were ruined and people had to carefully store their food for the winter months, but apples provided the perfect food. Different [...]

We see apples today as very much part of our stable diet and thousands of varieties are available in the shops. In all probability these varieties have developed from the basic fruits cultivated by the Romans. Agronomists who lived in the third century BC talk of seven varieties and Pliny in the first century AD [...]

The apple is probably one of the oldest fruits known to man and belongs to the rose family probably easier to see by studying the rose like flower of the tree. It is believed that the ancestors of the apple originated from a tree still found wild in Kazakhstan between the Caspian and the Black [...]

Throughout history apples have been closely related to Normandy, the large section of coast facing north across the English Chanel stretching from Cherbourg in the west to Rouen in the east and encompassing five departments, Manche, Calvados, Orne, Eure and Seine Maritime covering thousands of square kilometres. Of course the area is famous for its [...]