Élixir4 Distillery at the Château-monastery of La Corroirie

Some of the plants used in the distillery belong first to the everyday history of La Corroirie. This rose is one of the most intimate examples.

Jeff de Mareuil propagated it from cuttings taken from an old André Eve rose, planted for Maine beside the church. Over the years it became a familiar presence on the estate before entering the research carried out through distillation.

Its scent is particularly distinctive. It differs clearly from Burgundy roses, Damask roses and the varieties traditionally used in Grasse. This particular character is precisely what matters here: not a general idea of rose, but a specific plant growing in a specific place.

The degree to which the flower has opened, the time of day when it is picked and the delay before it is processed already change what can be perceived. The plant therefore imposes its own rhythm on the work of the distillery.

The distillery forms part of the continuing life of the Château-monastery of La Corroirie , without turning the place into a stage set. It occupies the former outbuildings at the entrance to the Cour des Moines, within an ensemble where the church, gardens, moat and old buildings continue to be inhabited and used.

Nothing has been reconstructed. Distillation has simply taken its place within this long history, as a contemporary activity based on observing plants, transforming them and allowing the time needed to understand what they can produce.

The gestures have changed since the Carthusians of Le Liget , but a relationship remains between the place, the plants and what is made from them.

Angelica grows particularly well at La Corroirie. Its presence on the estate makes it possible to follow the plant through time, from its growth to the experiments carried out in the distillery.

A single plant provides several different materials. Root, stem, leaf, flower and seed do not carry the same scents or the same balance. Using them requires changes to maceration times, proportions and sometimes even to the way they are distilled.

The large umbels are therefore only one visible stage of a much longer cycle. The plant is observed before it is transformed: its maturity, scent, season and the part harvested matter as much as the process that follows.

This direct observation of the plant is essential to the work of Élixir4. The recipe does not always come before the plant. It also develops from what the plant actually gives in a particular year, season or harvest.

Harvesting is already part of the distillation process. A rose picked in the morning, a flower that is more or less open or a few hours of waiting before processing do not provide exactly the same material.

After picking, the petals are removed by hand and prepared before maceration or distillation. Their scent is already beginning to change at this stage.

Freshness, maturity and harvesting conditions matter as much as the stages that follow. Some differences are almost imperceptible in the garden and become much more apparent once the material has been transformed.

Once the petals have been removed, they are gathered before being used in the distillery. This mass of plant material gives a very concrete sense of the distance between a flower still growing on the rose and the material that will later enter a maceration or distillation.

The bucket of petals therefore follows directly from the previous gesture: the whole flower becomes prepared material, still fresh, whose scent remains closely linked to the moment of harvesting.

This proximity between plant, hand and still places the research within the rhythm of the estate. Some experiments can be repeated from one year to the next, while others remain tied to a particular flowering or harvest.

After harvesting and preparation, the plants enter another period of work. In the distillery, rose, angelica and honey are brought together as materials to observe, compare and balance.

Each brings a different presence. Rose carries a very distinctive floral expression, angelica brings greater vegetal depth, while honey introduces another density and extends the material on the palate.

Their meeting is not a simple addition of ingredients. Proportions, maceration times, distillation temperature and resting time gradually change the balance.

It is within this space between fresh material and transformation that Élixir4♥ gradually takes shape.

Élixir4♥ grew from research carried out at La Corroirie into plants, scents and distillation. The wheat base, honey and botanical materials must find a common balance without one erasing the others.

Angelica and rose now have a particular place in this work. Their expression depends on the harvest, maceration, distillation and resting time. The aim is less to eliminate every variation than to recognise the balance that feels right.

Each bottle is numbered and therefore retains the trace of a particular moment in the work of the distillery.

Hemp formed part of earlier compositions and experiments, but it is no longer part of the current composition of Élixir4♥.

The Élixir4♥ bottle is priced at €68. It is currently sold out.

Discover Élixir4 on the distillery website

The distillery does not progress through a sequence of permanently fixed recipes. Some directions require several experiments, several harvests or several seasons before they find their place.

A scent may seem right as it leaves the still and then change after a few days of rest. A plant may reveal itself in a maceration and lose its finesse once distilled. The work must then be resumed, an equilibrium shifted, a proportion reduced or sometimes a direction abandoned altogether.

This uncertainty belongs to the work carried out at La Corroirie. Not every experiment is intended to become a product. Some simply help to understand a plant, a material or a process more clearly.

Bottles, hydrosols and experiments therefore retain the traces of particular moments: a harvest, a distillation, a cut, a period of rest and sometimes an equilibrium that will never return in exactly the same way.