This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Explanation: Not easy to put in a few words in English because it is so associated with French history and culture.
I am also assuming your bouilleurs de cru are the legal variety, a dying breed.
The right to legally distill spirits was attributed I don't know when, then there was a turnaround and it was decided to no longer allow it. As a result, the people entitled so to do are getting on in years (in their eighties or so), and the right cannot be passed on. So there's a notion of heritage. Maybe "heritage distiller" in quote marks.
Definitely a "heritage" thing, something one enjoys for its quaintness, its "home-spun-ness". Certainly the home-produced calvados I've drunk in my part of Normandy is rubbish compared to commercial produce. Much of it has never so much as touched the inside of a wooden cask or mellowed in any way. Much of it smells and tastes not at all of apples, which good young calvados will, but of raw, unadulterated alcohol. It's something you drink to get drunk quickly on, or to savour the last remnants of an age very soon gone by.
If I do impose myself on you, Bourth, I'll try to find a bottle of my neighbour's nectar to bring along - or failing that, a bottle of Ardbeg ... I'm happy to agree with you on Père Magloire (which doesn't even clean my brass very effectively).
Bourth (X)
Calvados tasting
13:12 Jun 19, 2009
When I say "commercial calvados", I'm not talking about the Père Magloire rubbish you get in supermarkets, but what is produced by distilleries like Anée/Buisnel, or what is lovingly aged in some local cellars and sold under various names. If you're ever this side of Evreux, Michael, drop by Bourth and we'll have a session tasting my selection!
With all respect to the other side of Evreux ... I have always understood "cru" in "bouilleur du cru" (not bouilleur du terroir, fortunately : how to translate "terroir" into English remains one of life's mysteries to me) to have the meaning of "local/local area"" simply because the "bouilleurs" have almost always been country people producing for their local area (and whether or not they were authorised to sell it, there was always an element of exchange in the giving). It cannot mean "cru" in the wine-making sense, and I have my doubts about "grossier, peu raffiné", because some of the Calvados so produced was (is, if you're lucky enough to find some) sublime. Far better than the junk sold in shops. But I have no experience of the strong liquor distilled by bouilleurs du cru in other regions... "Non-commercial distiller" hardly has the romantic parfum of "bouilleur du cru" ....
Unfortunately, private doesn't really mean private in English. What's a 'private business', 'private enterprise', 'private school', etc etc? Maybe "non-commercial distiller", though the itinerant B de Cru are commercial. "Distiller for private use"?
Bourth (X)
Humm from the other side of Evreux ...
12:12 Jun 19, 2009
Maybe I'm too literary, but I have never associated this "cru" with "terroir", but with the sense of "violente, sans atténuation" (lumière crue, mot cru, monter à cru) and what Lexis gives as its "CLASS. et LITT." meaning, "grossier, peu raffiné". Used adjectivally in these instances, of course, but in the cement industry "cru" refers to either the raw rock prior to calcining or to the raw clinker afterwards. Either way, it requires further processing to become the "refined" finished product.
Helen makes a good point - we ought not to lose sight of the meaning of "cru" here - it means "local" or "home-produced", and I don't think there is a direct equivalent in EN, because in the UK, USA etc it is illegal to distill strong alcohol, even for personal use. "Small-scale private distillers" (with a footnote if necessary) seems a good solution to this Calvados drinker, anyway ...
small-scale private distillers sit with everyone? Or even just private distillers? Perhaps the rest is evident from the context, which we have not seen, or could be explained briefly in brackets or a footnote, if needs must.
As I implied, and as Vaughn points out, "bouilleurs du cru" were/are (some still exist here in Normandy, if not elsewhere) exercising a legal right - they are just not allowed to sell the stuff.<br>I don't like "country distillers" or "farm distillers" much either, on reflection (and anyway I should have proposed them as an answer, not a discussion point), but I think "home distiller" is way off the mark.<br>AFAIK, "Moonshiner" is a N.A. term, and "moonshine" is certainly illegal, often dangerous to health. I agree that it would be misleading here (though not all bouilleurs du cru produce nectar - one of my other neighbours gave me some home-distilled Calvados that I used to use for cleaning our brassware ...).
for me.... shades of a trip to Réunion... but it would be nice to have more context so as to be able to tell what sort of activity - legal or not - is going on here
I'm not too fond of the terms "country distillers" or "farm distillers". Even today, stills can be seen in villages, and any connection to a farm or country environment is incidental, not part of the definition.
Bouilleurs de cru refers to a legally authorized production of hard liquor, a right extended to certain people for service rendered. Moonshine is a priori illegal. Using moonshine would give a false idea, even if there may be some overlap, concerning the production process and quality.
Most "bouilleurs du cru" (like my neighbour's parents) were farmers or country-dwellers, and I think "home distillers" suggests a pot still in somebody's suburban lounge .. I suggest "country distillers" or "farm distillers" as an alternative. "Moonshiners" (as the name suggests) operated after the sun had gone down, in various odd places, while bouilleurs du cru acted (legally) in their own outhouses or barns. And the excellent Calvados produced by my neighbour's father (of which I still have a small stock) is certainly not "moonshine".
but there are really overtones of "moonshining", even though the word" clandestin" is not used. Normally the beverage produced by "bouilleurs de cru" is "moonshine"
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
58 mins confidence:
grower-distiller
Explanation: The idea is that this person is not reselling a product he has bought, he is selling a product he has "grown" himself.
