Babes in Frogland

First posted on www.feeverte.net (Thanks to Brazen Kallisti)

TGV-three guy’s voyage
Ted Breaux arrived at 7:30 am at Charles de Gaulle airport, taxied to my place by 9:30. We had time to kill before the train left, and Ted had already decided how to fill it. Dupeyron was an Armagnac merchant located in condom (snicker), with a shop in Paris.
– We need something for the train, Ted explained.
No problem with that. We would hook up with Éric Massey there. Éric was there when we arrived. And the owner walked in at the same time and seemed pleased to see him…
We boarded our train and took our places, but not before stocking up on sandwiches and cold bottle water for our 3-hour tour, direction Switzerland. Pontarlier wasn’t even on the top, we had to switch to a small local train for the 10-minute connection. We sampled the 1968 Bas-Armagnac, plus a white Armagnac, unaged and fruity, and had a little taste of Un Émile 68°. We were in Pontarlier by mid-afternoon and the sun was blazing in an unnatural showing off full-summer strength. It couldn’t possibly last, we were almost in Switzerland for God’s sakes ! Wrong…
The rental car guy picked us at the station and chauffeured us to the agency. Éric took care of the details and as we were about to leave, we asked if the guy knew how to get our little village, where Benoît Noël choose typical resort :
-JIL-LEE ?
-What ?
I tried again. –JIL-LEE ?
-Euhh, I have no idea where was it, was his response.
One more time : JEE-LEE ?!
-Ouhh ? Aaaaah ? Oh ! JEE-YEE ! I live there ! he exclaimed proudly.
We couldn’t believe it.
God after more than two years living in France, I still go through this hell. Mispronounce the word just a little and it’s like you’re speaking in tongues. He showed us the way, we got into the car and promptly headed in the other direction, straight into town, for a quick sight seeing trip. He would have his revenge, again, later.

Cheese heads
We drove trough downtown, trough the Porte of Saint Pierre, the tuning-fork shpaed symbol of Pontarlier, a noble town entrance reflecting it’s once-rich past and one minute later, we were almost out of town, passing the Nestlé factory… For the first time since I started visiting Pontarlier, it had smells emanating from it’s fenced walls : synthetic strawberry, chocolate, cookie smells, and it seemed ironic that 100 years ago, the place would have the same olfactery effect, but with the heady anis-absinthe aroma of another era…
We didn’t stop… What for ? and drove around the factory, under the rail bridge and back around the town, direction : France profound… We passed by Doubs and other quaint little villages, winding little roads, pretty, but father away than I thought, when we finally ended up in Gilley… I didn’t know the exact adress of the « Chambre d’hôte » so we stopped in town and I tried to call… 5 p.m, and no answer… not good… this was chek-in time in hôtels, what the hell ? Éric parked the car and I jumped out to get directions at the local grocery store… The woman was kind and helful and seemed to know everything that was going on…
– I didn’t know Madame Marguet was running a chamber d’hôte… the shop-keeper exclaimed.
– Oh, oh…
Well, they’re farmers and at 5 o’clock, they’re out in the field…
– Ok…
– Here’s the adress, it’s up that way, about 2 kilometers.
– Thanks !
We took a wrong turn and we were winding down the flower covered hills, pretty, but didn’t seem right and decided to turn around… finally, we found our turn and started counting the house numbers..
– Number 14, there it is… A very large house that almost looked like it was a single-gabled apartment complex, alone, next to the road, but surrounded by fields… (1)
We pulled in and got out and were immediatly hit by the smell of cut grass, with a touch of cow dung from the fields… Danièle Marguet was in the dining area, next the kitchen, setting the table for the evening… She had the look of everyone’s favorite aunty, a gentle face that could do no harm… The kitchen was large and one wall was covered by baby portraits… This was someone’s home ! But not a home-come hôtel B&B… A real country home… I felt almost like I was Intruding… Madame apologized and said she has been out when I called and show us to our rooms… She didn’t grab any keys… We walked around the side, trough an old door to a side-garage, to set of stairs… There was a clown picture at the top the stairs… When we where all up the flight, Madame said she had three rooms now available for us (there were only two when I called) plus the room for Benoît and his girl-friend Véronique Herbaut, down the hall…
We came down stairs, just in time for Benoît et Véronique to pull up in their salmon colored VW Polo…
It’s a real working farm, they raise milk-cows for the local cheese, Benoît explained, and when the two adults sons showed up in their work t-shirts and field-stained shorts, it was more apparent…
We had an aperitif with them, and Adrien Marguet, the father, offered Cognac and tonic, Pineau-des-Charentes (basically red or wine grape juice blended with Cognac end bottled-chock drink), Vieux Pontarlier (distilled anise by Émile Pernot) and the local Absinthe François Guy… – Well, Madame said, François Guy is good, but not so good as la bleue…
Forks have been provided for the absinthe, just normal operating procedure for the locals, no fancy absinthe spoons here… Until… I brought down some spoons, anyway, but we didn’t need them, the Guy being already sweet enough, even without sugar… We then gathered around the dining room table, where we we served a local supper in several courses of : a caesar-like salad with fine-smoked ham bits (smoked on their farm, in chimney as a cathedral, « Thuyé », in the same building we we sleep in), sausage of Morteau (Morteau being the name of a near-by town, and never as near as good as this, once it gets prepared for the big city) made by the local butcher, potatoes au gratin with cheese from their cows, more Comté cheese from their cows for pre-desert and apple tart. I lived half on my life in the country (northeastern Wisconsin) which was known for cheese and sausage, and I can say without a doubt that the french farmer blow them away… Two many Germans and poles in Wisconsin have adopted a sense of cuisine, too heavy handed with heat and cooking times, too much pasteurisation, plus the spectre of hormones… We made our plans for the next days and went to bed… pulling back my covers, I found my bed to have been made with red Coca-cola brand sheets…
The next day, gorgeous and already hot, Benoit and Véronique headed out hiking, and Ted, Éric and I went into Pontarlier to visit the distilleries…

You’re livin’in your own private Cusenier

Ornans was recently written up by the NYtimes travel section, along with Auvers-sur-Oise, as one of two cute towns just a short distance from Paris… Auvers is about 20 minutes from Paris by car, Ornans is about 4 and half hours… So much for a little day trip or the concept of distance… The article never mentioned absinthe, or the Absinthe Museum, or the Cusenier distillery… Not surprising… We are all familiar with Van gogh’s connection in Auvers, but few people know of any historical connections, artistically, with Ornans… In fact, it is the birthplace of Gustave Courbet, one of the fathers of impressionism, who became (in)famous in 1866 for his work « Origin of the world » a tasteful, yet scandalously depicted foufoun of a prostitute… It is a charming little place (Ornans, now, not the foufoun, although it is charming, also) and the drive from Pontarlier is quite breathtaking… We discussed similarities with the North Carolina mountain country, and other woody, cliffy, lush terrain… I wouldn’t want to drive the road in an ice storm and some unfortunate people who had gone over the side of the windy road were commemorated on a plaque erected on a stone fence, supposedly keeping this from happening again, in 1942… 11 went down and 2 made it back … We stopped and took pictures and we could hear the Loue river rushing way down below… The loue is popular in the summer for kayaks and canoeing, though it doesn’t seem you can go too far… The whole region is a hiker’s paradise, if only it weren’t for the other hikers… We were very hungry, after our aperitifs at the Pernots, and quickly found the restaurant Émile had recommended, once arriving in Ornans… Nothing spectacular, but we could sit outside on the green plastic chairs… Mentioning Émile’s name was not necessary, since it was not really full at all… The plastic coated menu had a full back cover dedicated to the Pierre Guy distillery, with an old-timey color drawing of the building with horse-drawn wagons going by… His absinthe and Pontarlier-Anis was on the menu, but no mention of Émile pernot… François Guy has really locked up the local restaurant and liquor store market with his products, it is almost impossible to find Émile Pernot’s products anywhere in plain site, i wondered why he had chosen this restaurant for us… But, he is making fine liquor, and selling it and it goes somewhere successfully, not the 20,000 bottles (yes i made a mistake, it was 20 and not 30 thousand bottles of absinthe) François Guy has claimed to sell in 5 months, but then again, Émile is « artisanal » as he says, compared to François, who is industrial… Hell, François even sponsors a racing bike team, with custom jerseys, that publicize « Syranis », that non-alcoholic anis syrup-quote-l’apéritif du sportif-unquote, that we saw pre-louched, dripping out of one of his stills…
So we had a nice little lunch ; ham, cheese, chicken (vegetarians, kosher, forget about eating if you visit the Franche-Comté), local trout and local wine… We walked back to the sun-baked car and headed to the Cusenier distillery, where i had been in october, last year, and wanted to show to Éric and Ted… Since october, where grand plans at the Pontarlier Absinthiades 2001 that a « Museum of alcohol » would be installed in the distillery by a local absinthe collector, a slight change had taken place… Cranes had been installed, the front had been covered with scaffolding and green safety nets and men were busy at work… A banner sign was stretched across a small courtyard, in front of the main house… Residences Cusenier-the interlaced ECO monogram from the doors had been adapted as their logo… The grand distillery was in the process of transformation into condos! We looked around back, the once wildgrass-filled backyard had been flattened and gravelled, the stone wall, broken and recreated into an open gated area for parking… Trucks and men moved about, hammering, pouring, reshaping spaces… We peaked into an open doorway in the front, just going as far as we dared with everyone walking about… A small metal publicity sign, forgotten, rusted and turned backwards was stuck in a high spot over the door…we strained to read it, but couldn’t, it was just as well, since if it had been for absinthe, we would have probably pissed someone off, trying to climb the wall to recover it… Well, the building certainly could bring in more money as private condos, than a museum in the middle of nowhere… Benoît Noël later mentioned he was afraid the the bronze bust of Eugène cusenier, which still stood in the distillery somewhere, would end up stolen … We jumped back into the car and i made a little tour of the town, which was not huge, but a nice size, and far prettier than pontarlier; the old area climbs up a hill and the river is really the center of it… Old tourists were steaming about in groups… We stopped by a wine shop that had been run by a nice little old lady in october, who told me the big supermarkets were putting her out of business, and that she would retire by december… The front looked the same, and i hoped she still would be there…no luck…she was gone, and so was all of her old, rare, dusty stock, replaced be a clean, well arranged selection of local wines, all with similar labels… The shop had been bought by a local producer/négociant, to sell directly to the public, with a few things like local beers thrown in… We tasted a couple, and picked up some champagne, local beer, and a bottle of the famous Château-Chalon, an aged local white wine in a funny squat bottle that had a taste sort of like sherry… This wine (odd tasting, by itself) is heaven with the local comté cheeses and we had a bunch of cows-full, back at the farm… We pulled over so Ted could take some more photos and get some cash, and Éric and i critiqued a few local AOC-guaranteed local women who passed by, very white, full, milk-fed ; trying to look city-youth fashionable in a little country town… A sporting couple was in the river, battling against the current, trying to get their yellow-plastic canoe upstream… Modern times were marching slowing into this town, and i had witnessed some of it myself, in just 9 months, since i had last been there… Sort of depressing, really… We headed back to the farm to get ready for our Michelin-starred evening…

Over the Woods and through the River…

Friday night, we made the pleasant journey to Villers-le-lac, about 18 kilometers east of our farm… Benoît Noël had arranged for a dinner at the restaurant « Le France » of Hugues Droz (2), the youngest michelin-starred chef in France, plus a side trip to visit the famous « Saut du Doubs », a waterfall on the river… Hugues brother, Nicolas, ran a small restaurant near the site named « L’Absinthe » (3) in an old building that had served tourists to the region for more than a century… I must confess, if it were not for Benoît, our trip would have been what it turned out to be and we would have not had the chance to really meet the locals, which changed the whole experience… It is one thing to be a tourist, skimming an area and trying to pick up tidbits when you can, it is quite another to do what we had the opportunity to do… Benoît loves to meet people, and looks at everyone as having some kind of interesting story… Happily for us, the story he is looking for now is about absinthe…
The region, along with the town of Morteau, best known for it’s rustic sausage (and at least one absinthe distillery: p. carrez), was also known for clock and watchmaking, but overshadowed by the swiss on the other side of the border… The Droz brothers’ father had originally created a museum of watchmaking for the area and passed his entrepreneurship to his sons… We stopped by the « Hôtel de France », where the Hugues’s restaurant was located to get directions to « L’Absinthe. » Normally, one had to park the car at the top of a hill and hike down to the river, but we were given the ok to drive… We reached the old house,(but not before getting a little lost) at the end of a winding one-lane road that split into a dirt road to the left with the other direction ending in the water. The restaurant was in the typical, charming country style of Haut-Doubs, quite similar to the swiss-style, and a classified historical site… We walked around to the little « deli/giftshop » to the side, where we found Nicolas…
The « Maison de l’artisanat » was filled with local sausages, smoked hams, cheeses, wine, absinthe (François Guy) and other touristy things like candies and sachets of absinthe, all locally made… A perfect place to stock for a pique-nique next to the water… There was no one around, but by the look of the several little, self containing souvenir stands that lined the trail leading to the falls, the place could get crowded… One had the option at Villers-le-lac to take a boat to the site, but it took an hour and a half journey, in a boat crammed with senior citizens… Nicolas had installed an outdoor terrace opposite of the restaurant on the other side of the little dirt road… It was surrounded by absinthe plants, grand and petite, and other plant ingredients for creating the beverage… A nice little spot in the woods overlooking the river, with switzerland as a back-drop… It reminded me a bit of the northwoods in Wisconsin… The great thing about France is that there is so much that doesn’t remind you of the States, but then, unexpectedly, you see pleasant similarities… Unfortunately, some not always as welcome as a pine-forested river… We entered into the dining area… It was painted a soft, but pleasant green and the tables were covered in white and green checkered cloths… Glass cases were put into the walls, which contained small collections of absinthe items; glasses, spoons, fountains, carafes… The walls were decorated with reproductions of vintage absinthe posters… It wasn’t a large room, but comfortable and cheerful, a nice place to be… Nicolas explained that having a restaurant was not really his idea, but his father’s, as his inclinations leaned toward painting… He was in the process of coming up with an idea for an original painted sign for the front… If a struggling artist had to be condemned to a « real job » this, in my opinion, was not a bad place to be… We were offered an aperitif, absinthe, of course, and, of course, François Guy, who has managed to get the monopoly in the restaurants of the region for placement of his products… Ted Breaux, as always, was armed with his, and offered him a taste… »fort! »… It is the first reaction of amost every french or swiss who has tried it, followed by a confused and usually amazed look…
We drank our drink, explained a bit about what Ted does,and what we were up to, and chatted about the site, and the story of an absinthe fountain that was found in the bar of an old french fencing club,where it originally stood, that Nicolas might be able to get… It was getting late, and we had still not seen the « Saut » (which we could just hear, when outdoors )… We made the short wooded walk, the roaring getting louder as we approached… Were amazed at the size of the falls… Though not Niagara falls by any means, it is quite impressive and unexpectep pictures were taken and we gazed over the thin railing as the water crashed below… We hiked back to the restaurant, but, unfortunately, had to leave rather quickly, as we had reservations at his brother’s… When we stepped outside and got ready to leave, Nicolas started asking me, casually, about Ted’s absinthe, like how much it would cost… I told him we would keep him posted… We thanked him and wished him good luck, and got into the car…

A Troubling Relationship between Cows and Frogs
Boveresse is a short distance from Gilley, if you are a bird… The turning backroads are picturesque, especially when you cross over the small, forested mountains and drop into the val de travers ; a flat stretch of plain dotted with small towns : Couvet, Môtiers, Boveresse, Fleurier… It was a perfect day, but already hot by 9 am, if you were not from the region, you would be pressed to believe it actually got extremely cold here… Boveresse gets it’s name from « bovine » –cow- of which there were quite a few about, munching on hillside grasses.
I’m sure there had to have been many more at one time, for the town to named after them…
The people are called Grenouillards -frog people- because the area had been also very swampy, and a favorite pastime was hunting frogs… You’d think they would have been called « boveressians » regardless, but « frog people », well don’t question it… We found the parking area, but then decided it was better to find some swiss cash before we got started. The parking security girl pointed us to Couvet, via the back road… She was american… I should have asked her story, but was a little surprised, and she seemed busy… She was the only other american we came across there, except for Betty Wittels… When we returned, we were greeted by a marching band, which incorporated all the best (if that term can be used, me being an old bass/marching drummer) aspects of the classic high school band, from matching uniforms to individual, strutting solos… We did our best to go around them, and get the hell away…
There were brochures for sale, along with real and repro labels, the la fée cartoon fairy spoon (limited edition of 150) and the almost undrinkable absinthe wine and a creole-style absinthe rum, called « décollage » meaning to « take-off » which traditionally was drunk all day long in the islands, hidden in cups of coffee (I had talked to a colleage at my old job, who had told me that she remembered trying absinthe in Martinique, though it was only drunk by the old-timers… If it tasted like this, i can see why no one was drinking it now)… Yves Kübler (4) had made it’s grand appearance as Switzerland’s first legal absinthe(45°), since 1910… One man was clutching a bottle like he had found the holy grail… Of course, there were no absinthes from Pontarlier, they may be neighbors, but there is a great rivalry between the two regions, both claiming to be ground-zero for absinthe… Switzerland is also not part of the EU, and laws vary ; we were the subject of much consternation last year by the president of the festival and the local customs officials, by openly drinking a bottle of Oxygénée that I had brought with me… It is illegal in Switzerland, but moreso, I was told, because it has unapproved artificial colorings in it…
It is interesting, as a side note, that growing marijuana is legal in Switzerland (live plants for decorative purposes, only, please) it’s oils are used for perfumes and cosmetics along with the fiber for clothing, etc, but also sold in some shops in dried packages of buds, quite similar to that found in Amsterdam (for scenting your closet and drawers, thank you)… You must be a swiss citizen to buy it… There are a few professional growers who are stocking tons of it, in preparation for the time it will become legal to actually smoke… One has to laugh about concerns over clandestine absinthe-making…
We made a quick overview of the flea-market, located on the main street, now that the town « séchoir », -absinthe drying shed-, had been turned into a museum… Dealers complained about a lack of material available to sell, and only had a few bits and pieces compared to last year… It was amusing to view the small plot of absinthe planted in the lot behind one dealer, things were really changing…
Frenchman Phil was not there, as he was literally run out of the country last year, in a fit of jealousy by local swiss dealers, upset that he was selling (and selling very well) his reproduction spoons (as reproductions). I must note that i noticed a fake Eiffel tower spoon being sold by one of these dealers at the time… We were also a little late, arriving at around 9:30-10am, since there were several new collector/dealers adding to their personal stashes along with selling duplicates and less interesting material… Someone said Betty had showed up at 6am, 2 hours before the dealers were even ready to go… I look for absinthe antiques for fun, Betty is serious, she finds great stuff, and gets collectors to part with things some said they would never sell… She works for it… Anyone (with enough money) who asks her to find something special, will most likely get it, or if not, it won’t be for lack of trying on her part…
I managed to find a lone couple, at the end of the street, who had bought the old Ammann distiller’s house in Fleurier, and had discovered a cache of old miniature bottles (some with absinthe labels) and unused labels… Though mostly picked through, a beautiful advertising carton for the distillery Jacob Schumacher and Jean Ammann was left behind (Schumacher originally being the only actual distiller in Boveresse beforehand) and which later became just J. Ammann ; with a color rendition of the towns and scenery of the Val-de-Travers, like a giant post card, circa 1880… I quickly offered to buy it, promising to come back with cash, seeing that it was a good deal, but still ridiculously more than i had on me… I couldn’t believe no one else had picked it up, but learned later several collectors had been eyeing it, since it was previously unknown, but he who hesitates, etc…
Ted had brought his copy of madame Delahaye’s « Absinthe, son histoire » which he wanted her to sign… She had a little table in the middle of the flea market, well away from the Séchoir, where Benoît Noël was signing his latest works, along with Pierre-André Delachaux, the local swiss absinthe historian, who was also signing his books… I made introductions with Marie-Claude, Éric Massey and Ted… Ted rose to the occasion, turning on as much southern gentleman charm as was legal in Switzerland, took her hand and kissed it… It was almost possible to see the little birds circling and chirping around her head… Ted had been carrying around a small flask of the Nouvelle-Orleans and a given a sniff to a french collector, whom we had a tough time explaining it’s origins to, she thinking that it was industrial, and high in alcohol, but in my opinion, her just never really having had much (decent) to taste before… Marie-Claude also had a sniff, but I don’t remember her taking a sip… We were hungry by this time and decided to get something to eat ; Éric had never tasted Kübler, so he wanted to order a glass… I stuck with beer, a safe bet on such a hot day, knowing Kübler, and having been previously introduced to swiss white wine, which comes in a screw-top bottle, is slightly sparkling, and has unpleasant secondary effects, not least is a splitting headache… Éric took one sip of the Kübler and couldn’t finish it… We decided to go into the packed local restaurant, and had an unremarkable meal… Afterwards, we headed over the the Séchoir, where we would meet up with Benoît and Mr. Delachaux… This time, a taste of Ted’s brew would lead to an extraordinary afternoon…

Messieurs … c’est l’heure !
Pierre-André Delachaux is a friendly, approachable fellow, and along with being curator of the absinthe rooms at the Musée de Môtiers, just down the road from Boveresse, he has also written a couple of books and several articles on absinthe…
Pierre-André was seated next to Benoît Noël when we showed up at the table… Benoît made the introductions. We chatted a bit about modern absinthes and he mentioned Hermès from Japan, and said it wasn’t bad… When I told him that back label said in Japanese that there wasn’t any absinthe in it, he was quite surprised… I asked Benoît if it would be interesting for Mr. Delachaux to try some of Ted’s, as an example of american style absinthe… I was given the green-light and Ted whipped out his pocket flask and Pierre-André gave it a sniff and sip… He seemed very much to enjoy it (a final version of « Nouvelle Orleans »). He had a project to do for this evening, some sort of artistic night-event to dedicate a park in the middle of Môtiers that had been saved (with a great help from him) from being turned into an apartment building… and was about to leave… Would you like to try some « La Bleue » that I have at my home? he asked…
– Of course!
– Give me a few minutes and then follow me on my bike…
We made the 5 minute trip following the billowing jacket of cyclist Pierre-André, and pulled into his unassuming driveway… We were ushered into his house, where we were met by a glimpse of the Val-de-Travers, and a livingroom surrounded by modern paintings and sculpture, absinthe glasses, modern, commissioned La Bleue label portraits and a laplander’s reindeer sled… This was the home of artists, and not hick-town, country folk… We were lead out to his back porch, where we had the full effect of the placement of his home… Right in the center of the valley, looking straight down the middle, small herds of cows scattered about, with small mountainous ridges on either side… It was stunning… Heïdi would have felt right at home… With the magnificent weather, it couldn’t be a better representation of why someone would want to live where he does… We seated ourselves comfortably around a table, and Pierre-André went to get a couple of bottles… His wife showed up, he asked her to get some cold water, and she returned with a vintage green-glazed clay « Messieurs…c’est l’heure! » pitcher with a clock on the front signalling 10 to midnight, and a fox-headed spout… This is probably the most infamous swiss carafe, immortallizing the slogan of the famous poster showing the ghoulish blue-cross anti-alcohol preacher, satirizing the banning of absinthe in switzerland, in a mock reference to a « last call for alcohol »… I had never handled one of these before (I imagine they were made moreso later on, 1920’s-30’s, and possibly still today… It can be almost impossible to tell with hand-made pottery) this did not detract from it’s beauty, and from it’s defiant, mocking stance against the ban… It was the most appropriate piece for the occation, and well reflected this man’s sense of aesthetics… He presented us with two bottles, one a champagne style, without a label…
This is 15 years old, he said… The other, bright blue green and squarish, with an emblossed skull and cross bones and « warning poison! » in three languages…
this is more recent…
– Did you make that ? the unaskable question was posed…
– It was made, Pierre-André said calmly, while speading his arms out, « in the region »…

(1) Chambres d’Hôtes Adrien et Danièle Marguet
14, La Montagne de Gilley
25650 Gilley
(T) 03 81 43 31 54

(2) Hôtel-Restaurant Le France
Hugues et Nathalie Droz
8, Place Cupillard
25130 Villers-le-Lac
(T) 03 81 68 00 06

(3) Restaurant L’Absinthe
Nicolas Droz et Véronique Perrier
Le Saut du Doubs 25130 Villers-le-Lac
(T) 03 81 68 14 15

(4) Distillerie Black Mint, Kübler & Wyss
Yves Kübler et Alexandre Wyss
2, rue du Creux-aux-Loups
2112 Môtiers (Suisse)
(T) 032 861 14 69
www.blackmint.ch