Here is the second part of our interview with Anthony Martins, selector, breeder and bottler of spirits for Old Brothers with his old brother Julien. We talked about design, cooperage, Jamaica, Cape Verde, but also tons of projects that our hyperactive has on the go. New brands will see the light of day, including a certain World Esters which should make a lot of noise!
If you missed the first part, it's here .
Your Old Brothers vintages are always meticulous and original from a design point of view, is this a passion that you have always maintained?
I discovered this passion when I created Old Brothers . I had a lot of fun when it came to creating the first three bottles (cognac, armagnac and Bielle 2006). I told myself that we had to release the best possible stuff, both in terms of selection and marketing. We had a blast creating, and since then, with each new release, we make a new bottle. It's really something important to me because I really like creating, and also working in a team. So I try to do more and more collaborations with artists. I do this with a friend with whom I get on very well, it's really cool.
Have you been working with the same person since the beginning?
At the beginning I really did the packaging all by myself. Since the 50cl matte black and matte white bottles, I work with Benoît Alaux who is a friend, and who has a company specialized in coding websites (Pi Communication). He is someone who has great taste, and sometimes even when something seems perfect and suits me, he finds mistakes, he is very critical. He knows how to balance things and it is a real pleasure, good teamwork.
I have the ideas, I tell him how I see them, and he creates the visuals with the elements I give him. I use a computer to send emails and listen to music, I am incapable of creating a visual or graphics. For the LPCH, FWI etc, I had found the terms, I wanted sobriety, we then created these visuals together with this idea in mind.
I believe you work with the Navarre cooperage.
At the time, when I started to age my first barrels, I made do with the means at hand. I did things that I would not do now. For example, when I released the 86.3 ( an LROK from Hampden, editor's note ), I wanted to age a barrel for 3 years to release it as old. I used my Diamond barrel and my Fiji barrel that I had emptied.
These were barrels that were rinsed, but since we didn't have a penny, I made do with what I had. It marked the distillate quite quickly, by the previous rums that were in these barrels rather than by the bourbon, which they hadn't contained for years after all.
It took on the candle wax side of Fiji; kumquat, quite a few citrus fruits that came to complete the aromatic palette of Hampden. On the Diamond cask, it took on a bit of the bitterness of that rum, and an apple/pear side. For once, the Fiji is really great, but in the first few years I didn't like the Diamond at all. So I left them in the cask, and then after 2 years, 2 1/2 years, the Diamond really improved.
"I just ordered two barrels from Willy ( Navarre, editor's note )"
which have 7 years of bourbon. I will finish the rums there for at least 6 or 7 months, and I will release them when they are good. The Fiji had left on the De Gallant boat ( with the Frères de la côte, editor's note ), it made a round trip to the Caribbean. When it came back, my goal was to release it, but it was not yet ready, so it is still there. So I will put it back in bourbon barrels, to get wood, tannins, which it had not taken on until now. It had rather taken on the aroma of the old rums, so we will give it a little structure to balance things out a little.
I thought it would come out after three years, but it will come out when it is good. Now it is rather the rum that will decide.
Are you planning to build a larger barrel park?
Yes, I'm also going to work with Willy on that. We're debating, because I would like to do everything in bourbon barrels, because that's what I like. It's rare that what I prefer is the least expensive, so for once it is, we have to combine business with pleasure! (laughs). So I would like to work exclusively in bourbon barrels, but I have partners who would like to try something else. For example, if we take 1000 liters at 86%, and reduce them to 69% for aging, we will recover about 1200-1300 liters. We could then make half bourbon, half cognac, and make two versions. It's not stupid either, it can give two expressions on the same juice. It will be fun in 5 years, to look at the differences.
So we are still in talks, within the framework of a new company that has just been created, and which is called World Esters (the world of esters, in English). The objective is to arrive on the market by offering the general public quality products at aggressive prices. That's what I was missing a little bit. With Old Brothers I have ultra-premium, with La Source distribution I have premium and ultra-premium with Bielle and Montebello, but I didn't have aggressive prices. The idea is to bring juice at the price it costs, with a quality 5 times higher than competitors at that price.
"On the white rum that we are going to release, a blend of column rum from the West Indies ( WIRD – Barbados, editor's note ), Long Pond STCE and Savanna HERR, we will be at €22.90 on the shelves, in 70cl.
And it's good! Super good! »
With a little technique, we create blends. We haven't invented anything, we take what people have created in the past, taking great aromas to bring complexity to lighter rums. This allows us to come up with a juice that really has some character. It's a harlequin candy juice! We have a little bit of olive brine, and a lot of deliciousness. It's a real candy, and we're going to make a killing with this one 🙂
The profitability of this company will go into aging. So obviously I will work with Willy, and the day I have enough demand to import myself, I will go and select barrels directly in the United States and I will bring back a container. But for now it would cost too much for the needs we have.
We have three lines coming out this year, one that concerns the world of rum and which I just mentioned, and two other lines that will be gin and vodka. Our target is mainly the CHR ( cafes, hotels, restaurants, editor's note ), but also wine merchants. You will be able to go to the wine merchant and buy a gin for less than €30, which will hold up and be very good. We are tired of going into ordinary bars and only finding poor quality.
"The idea is to bring something that is 5 times better in quality, but still at an aggressive price."
The rum will be 41.9%. That's why it was important for me to create another company, because that's not my specifications for Old Brothers. But somewhere it's missing, we're fed up with paying too much for products. When you buy really old and expensive stuff, it's normal, but at some point we can also give people something to drink at very affordable prices.
On Old Brothers I only select things that I like, often a bit crazy stuff. I have no limits, except in terms of reduction. I will never release something below 47%, unless it is cask strength, because otherwise I get a bit bored. Here the objective is different, that's why we separated the boxes, and I'm very happy because it's very good.
We're going to try to get it to market fairly quickly, within 4 months. We just need to get the funding, and we'll get started!
To tell you the truth, we should already have this financing, we had done our entire business plan for the CHR, and then when it was time to go see the bank, we said to ourselves that it was not really the right time, given the state of the sector. So we redid a business plan for wine merchants. It's cool because at the beginning we weren't supposed to release bottles. We were only supposed to release 3L cubis for the CHR.
"For this company, what is important to us is to have the least possible carbon impact."
So for the bottles we will start with packaging and labels where there will be only the legal minimum. For the caps, they will only be waste revaluations. It will be either based on sugar cane residues, grapes, or things like that. We realize that being eco-friendly is expensive! (laughs) But our goal is to give the product for what it really costs, and to pay attention to the carbon impact because that is also important. In any case it is in the air of time, and I think that all the companies that will be created in the future will always have these specifications. We must always try to do better, to be as clean as possible.
It’s interesting to be able to show that we can be ethical and inexpensive at the same time…
We have a very tight budget for packaging, so it will be very minimalist, the idea being to give juice. On the bottle, it will say "white rum", West Indies, STCE and HERR, but that will be all. The idea is to open the bottle, throw away the cap, drink it with your friends or put ice cubes and make cocktails. There is no point in throwing anything away, because a bottle is waste, especially since at this price there will be rotation. The 3L format will arrive in a second phase, when the CHR reopen.
We adapted the project to the situation. Right now, if we don't have this capacity, it's complicated. We have to adapt constantly. So we don't forget the CHR, and we will support them as soon as they reopen with special offers. It's important for us to support the bar and the restaurateurs. I set up this company with Quentin Pierre-Antoine who runs the Fat Cat, the Poison company and the Autochtone bar in Toulouse. It was also set up with Benjamin Galais (Ardent Spirit). All of us are directly targeted, and especially Quentin with his bars.
I hang out a lot in cocktail bars, I have a lot of friends who are restaurant owners or who have bars, and they are really struggling. The idea is to offer them support solutions with aggressive prices, but also with offers so that they can get back on their feet.
The new H and MLC should be arriving soon.
We are waiting for the labels, because we received a first batch that was not compliant. As a result, we had to send them back, but there are industrial schedules and with our small order we did not have to prioritize. So it will arrive soon, the MLC and the H are ready. We have the bottles, the caps, the juices, we are just waiting for the labels!
The Hampden H is a cask strength from 2001. It is at 61.6% alcohol by volume, and these are 50cl bottles. It is a single cask, indigenous yeasts, 3-week fermentation, 100% double retort pot-still, bourbon cask, 72% angels' share. It took 4 casks to have a whole one today. The color is natural, without chill filtration. In esters, it is at 777 g/hlap, and for total volatile substances, at 2370 g/hlap. We will see the feedback, but for my part, it is the best Hampden I have ever tasted.
The MLC is a high ester from Clarendon. It will be 61.3% alcohol by volume, in 50cl too. It is a single cask, indigenous yeasts, 2-week fermentation, 100% double retort pot-still, bourbon cask. It is also a 2001 with 72% angels' share. This one has been reduced, so it is a "high proof". The reduction was made with Mont Roucous spring water.
“We went from 79% to 61.3% over 4 and a half months.”
I liked it brut, but we did a few reduction tests, and we realized that the fruit opens up and that it's magical. I could have made 2 versions, reduced it and kept some to make 20cl of brut, but since we are at 61.3% we are still on something that has a lot of power. It is very balanced, the fruit has increased tenfold, the woody side is attenuated (it is a 19 1/2 year old including 18 years in a tropical climate), so the reduction really did it a lot of good. I tasted it again yesterday, and it is super good!
Given that you now distribute Montebello with La Source, would Old Brothers selections be possible?
It's more than possible since it's already underway! I'm going to make 2 new vintages with Joey Starr while waiting for the new independent bottling brand that we're going to create . I'm going to set up a new company with him, and the idea is to announce it with two new vintages . A New Grove will already be released soon, at the same time as the H. It's a 53% ice tea ( laughs ), it's crazy! It's a blend of 6 different barrels, and 5 vintages. I didn't take whole barrels, but I was able to draw from several barrels. At the time, I had never blended more than 3 barrels, and there I wanted to double the game. So I went and drew from 99, two barrels from 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2013.
On the bottle, I had the choice of writing 2013, which is the youngest vintage, or XO. I had promised myself that I would never release XO because I found it really lame, but "2013" didn't really highlight the vintage, especially since it is the weakest in proportion in the blend. So finally I called it XO!
Before starting the new company with Joey Starr and his partners, we want to release one last collaboration with Old Brothers. It will be a white Montebello, probably brut de colonne, and an old Montebello. We will announce the arrival of the new company when these vintages are released. The idea of this company is to bring rums aged in a tropical climate, with a little more emphasis on volume, but I will sign the rums so I will do my job as best I can, as usual.
“My signature on reduced rums, rather accessible, is 47.1%”
There will be a rum from New Grove. It will be strange for me since I will have to assemble 26 barrels, so we will start with 5000 bottles. I want us to be independent and autonomous in everything, so I will take care of the distribution. It is another challenge, we will have to make good choices of assemblies and good choices of barrels.
Then we will go and get the same from Montebello, and we will also make 5000 bottles in old agricultural. I am also waiting for a response from Bielle, and normally we will have a white agricultural rum. The idea is not to release crazy stuff, but accessible things, to discover the know-how of each of the distilleries. It must be accessible enough for neophytes to appreciate, and complex enough for guys like us to enjoy it too. So we will make volume, but it will be impossible to compromise on quality.
This collaboration with Old Brothers is quite funny, because I listened to Joey Starr when I was a kid, and life made us meet. He became a client, I hosted tastings at his concerts, it happened quite naturally. I really like collaboration, teamwork, it's very important to me. That's how I did the 45.9 with Ferroni, the 86.3 bottling with Cave Passion, the 70.1 with 1802 etc. I like to do collabs with passionate friends, without any financial interest. I like to share things, and it's even cooler when you do things as a couple. The goal is to have fun, I've never seen competition anywhere, I don't care, I do my thing and I want to share as much as possible, in all simplicity.
Do you still plan to work with Cape Verde?
I bought 1000 liters of grogue, 500 liters from Van Der Ley in Ribeira da Cruz, and 500 liters of Tarrafal. I filled a bourbon barrel on site. The only barrels I tasted there for aging were wine barrels or port barrels, but I don't like that at all because it always takes over the distillate, it softens the wild side. Van Der Ley, in Ribeira da Cruz, is the healthiest, cleanest distillery, whose processes resemble a distillery that could be French, while at the others it is really very wild. It is less wild than the other grogues, but it is incredibly pure. I put it in a bourbon barrel to see what potential there could be there.
It is obvious that we will try to develop Cape Verde and in Europe. It has been in barrels since September, so in a year, when I return to Cape Verde, we will see what it gives. If it gives as well as I think, we will ask a distiller to double the distillations to increase the volume of alcohol, in order to age on site. There the grogue is white, there is no culture of ageing, so the idea is to bring this culture there.
Is double distillation common in Cape Verde?
No, because when you double distill it, you can no longer call it "grogue". So it will be "Cape Verde rum". If you want to age it for a few years, 40 or 50% is not enough. For now we are at 46.9%, so at best it can stay 2 years in the barrel. If it is good after a year, a year and a half, we will release it, if not we will see! I have always found that the job of bottler is super easy, you just have to go and get the right barrels from the distilleries. On the other hand, when I do aging, it is always experimental, I do not know what it will become.
There is always an option that says that if it is not to my taste, if it is not in my specifications, it does not come out. We will see! But I believe in it because we have a very good quality bourbon barrel, a very good quality juice, an average temperature of 30°C, we should be not bad. Over there, wine barrels mark a lot, and I really wanted a bourbon barrel, a simple base that does not take over the distillate. It brings a little egg cream, sabayon, a little vanillin, with a pastry side that still leaves room for the distillate, and that matches well. The biggest slaps I took, whether in whisky or rum, were in bourbon barrels.
