Distillerie du Houley La Ribaude Prestige

D&M NOTES (11/2025):

TASTING: The Prestige is the distillery’s oldest blend, with a minimum age of 20 years but also containing some spirits between 30 and 35 years old, The nose opens with notes of baked green apple, marzipan, spice and a whiff of smoke. On the palate this is medium to full bodied with flavors that echo the nose and finishes with excellent length.

ABOUT THE PRODUCER: Located in Ouilly-de-Houley near Lisieux, this distillery embodies everything we love about authentic Norman heritage. The Deschamps family has been making Calvados for nine generations. These days they are passionate about the craft and results of their work. In 1953, the Deschamps family founded the Distillerie du Houley as an independent family business that would become known as La Ribaude. The La Ribaude name has a special local connection: Ribaudiens is actually what the inhabitants of Ouilly-du-Houley are called. In addition to founding the distillery in 1953, Jean Deschamps was the first in the region to develop a refrigerated cider house. In the fifties and sixties, he sold his cider in bulk, making daily trips to various café as far away as Le Havre where a full barrel of cider would be exchanged for the now empty barrel that had been delivered earlier in the week. Generations take on the work of those that came before and in 1974, Jean’s son Daniel took over. With the advent of bottled cider, Daniel began modernizing the cidrerie and also built a larger distillery on the property. They began bottling their cider instead of selling it in bulk and distilling what cider remained. Daniel died in 2007, but in the 1990s his sons and daughter, Jean, Jerome and Delphine, took over the reins of the domaine. Today the distillery du Houley is the last large distillery in the region to belong to a French family.