How to create a remarkable gin in 18 months?
They pick immortal flowers in their field of which they make gin, they drink with the patterns of terraces and restaurants which buy them their production.Amateurs favor their drink ... At first glance, the life of this couple of starters of spirits, as they make you discover on the island of Oléron, in Charente-Maritime, has the appearance of a fairy tale.How did Christophe and Cécile Amigorena got there to get there just eighteen months? She is northern, expert in marketing and communication, but also a painter.He, a little more senior (1966 vintage), mid-fat, half-charentais, grew up in Cognac.It could be described as specialist in very high speed of business business.Some met him with Occitane, where he landed in 2003 while the company is in full takeoff.He quickly takes the direction of the American branch.From New York, he exploded sales of the Provencal label.Then we hear about him at the American sound giant, Bose, before finding him in the small Devialet house, where he is one of the players in the world launch of the Phantom enclosure, who will overdop the turnover of thesociety.Earlier, he was one of the spearheads of the Häagen Dazs ice cream brand.It was even where he met Cécile."Almost all businesses and business leaders for whom I have worked are among our business investors today," he said.
An oléron immortelle
The two say that their new business was above all a desire to change their life.“In 2003 we had decided to settle in Cognac.We also had a house in the dunes, a stone's throw from the beach, in the small village of Chaucre, on the island of Oléron.I went back and forth with Paris.But that could not last ".This time is the right one.It is a question of taking root, of establishing oneself in Oléron.In December 2019, they filed the Melifera statutes, draw € 62,000 from their equity and launch."We started in a garage, like Apple," he dares.His wife smiles.
The base, the soul of a gin, remains its perfume.It is the Oléronaise Immortelle, spicy plant with scents of warm sand, which will be the central element of the recipe.Prohibition to pick it in the dunes, whose vegetation is protected."We could have given ourselves elsewhere but we decided to plant it".They buy a 2 hectare fields hitherto dedicated to market gardening, a piece of oléron countryside full of charm, on the edge of the forest.Two hundred and fifty plants of Helichryrysum Italicum, with pepper and menthol stem, give it the best of themselves.They will also increase their production.The landscape architect Jean-Baptiste Lacombe arranges the plot so that it also becomes a place of discovery of the local flora, a sort of showroom of their product.And then, to the wild raspberries, they will add the juniper, the gentian, the sagebrush and a honey carpet.At the end of the field, they will install hives.They campaign for the reintroduction of the black bee, more resistant (but a little more aggressive) than the common hybrid."We work with the Conservatoire de l'Abeille Noire d'Oléron (Cano) and we finance DNA tests to verify that the hives of black bees are not colonized by other species".Note that the scientific name of the insect is Apis Mellifera, almost that of their brandy.We just wonder why they did not call their "immortal" gin."The name was already taken, and then our lawyer advised us not.It is not very compatible with the Evin law, "they regret.The immortals are harvested by hand, cut with the Cran Serpette.Our two creators went to Corsica to learn the basics of this agricultural work that breaks their back.Once the plant has been cut, it is a question of macerating it in an alcohol at 68 degrees to obtain the desired aromas.Then carry out final assemblies with wheat alcohol from the Chevanceaux distillery (17).
At the top of the rankings of the best gins
When he does not pick his flowers, Christophe Amigorena lifts funds.This year, he called on several investors and brought together more than € 600,000, before obtaining € 300,000 from the public investment bank.Serious.Melifera seems on good rails.The design of the bottle is neat.We find there the flowers of immortals, the reference to Aliénor d'Aquitaine who would have adorned his crown of Immortelle flowers during his second marriage, with Henri Plantagenêt, the Chassiron lighthouse, which marks the northern tip of the island... all this is well thought out, well marketed.Tasteers appreciate.Melifera quickly found himself in the lead or in good place of the rankings of the best gins."But it is not enough to create a good product and a brand, it must be distributed," says Amigorena.He knows that he is not spending a week without a new gin coming to the end of his cap.He thinks that the market will saturate and that many brands will disappear.Only the best and the best distributed will survive.Melifera is available in many southwest cases, a little in the Southeast, at very good Parisian wine merchants.But entrepreneurs want to go up a gear and target the United Kingdom, the North American market, Japan ... The couple envy the firepower of large groups in the sector and does not exclude rapprochements.
In the meantime, the Amigorena feeds new ideas - a second gin should see the light of day - and carry out collaborations.Their cocktail based on gin, liqueur of angelica, salicorn and champagne developed by the restaurant of Christopher Coutanceau, in La Rochelle, is successful.The Amigrena wanted to change their life.It succeeded.But they haven't changed rhythm.He remains connected to Waze and travels tens of thousands of kilometers to present his spirits.She, accustomed to the rendezvous in the offices of the GAFA, in Palo Alto and elsewhere, must settle the smallest details of the functioning of the family business.They have crazy energy.It's like that: the gin makes tonic.Christophe and Cécile Amigorena (above) were able to create a gin in barely eighteen months which quickly found itself at the top of the rankings.
