How a father-son duo turned a lifelong passion for distillation into Maison Le Chêne and its groundbreaking creation, Chambre Noire
Admittedly, the LinkedIn message took me a little off guard:
“Hi Tod – It’s great connecting with you.
My name is Sacha Le Chêne. I’m co-founder of Maison Le Chêne. You wrote a really beautiful piece on my dad, Simon, almost 30 years ago. It was about him and the ice wine grappa he developed whilst working at Magnotta.
He asked me to get in contact with you to let you know we have our own micro-distillery here in Quebec and are launching our first product, Chambre Noire, a coffee spirit.
More importantly, he would like to reconnect.”
I sometimes wonder how many people – if any – actually read the stuff I write, so I was pretty (and pleasantly) floored to find out that not only did at least one person read one of my stories, they actually never forgot it over the course of close to 30 years.
Not too long after my “reunion phone call” with Simon I was on a train heading from Toronto to Montreal where I was going to be a sort of guest of honour at the launch party of Maison Le Chêne and its flagship spirit – Chambre Noire. Needless to say, I had an amazing time, not only at the party, but over the course of a few days spent with Sacha, Simon, friends and family.
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I had a chance to tour (insofar as you could really “tour”) the distillery with Simon, and I must say, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Micro-distillery is probably an overstatement. “Nano-distillery” would be more accurate, as the still house is actually a shipping container, with the infusion tanks for the coffee beans and alcohol (and a hand-bottling/labeling/packaging operation) tucked into what is essentially a walk-in closet in an adjacent building. (“Could get one for my condo,” methought.)
The whole “father-son partnership” in an extremely unique venture struck me as a pretty interesting story, so I sat down with Simon and Sacha to get the “big picture.”
Sacha and Simon Le Chêne.
“I was formally trained in Paris in the art and science of oenology and distillation before working as a consultant,” Simon reveals when asked about his background in distillation. “My career began in earnest in Paris, where I graduated top of my class from L’École des Vins et Spiritueux de Paris. I further pursued studies in Business Administration and after graduation I worked in the field as a consultant for a number of Parisian firms trading in wine and spirits internationally.”
In July of 1979 Simon moved from Paris to Montreal where he consulted for firms like Corby and Schenley, where he helped modernize their facilities and methods of production. By the early 90s he had dedicated himself entirely to distilling and producing spirits.
“From 1995 to 2000 I built two distilleries in Ontario, where I pioneered the world’s first Ice Wine Grappa. In 2001 I was contracted to build a distillery in Chambly, Quebec, for Unibroue. The first single malts made in Quebec were produced there.”
This lasted until around 2007, when Simon then went on to continue consulting for a number of burgeoning wineries, cideries, and a small micro distiller in the eastern townships – Domaine Pinnacle. “I’ve been working closely with my son, Sacha, since roughly 2013, when he approached me to begin our own firm.”
The still house is inside a shipping container.
I asked Sacha when he first got interested in distilling and was given a rather creative answer:
“When did Obelix become interested in the ‘magic potion’? I admit, like my favourite Gaulic character, to have fallen in the ‘barrel’ at a very young age. The easy answer is at birth. Though the interest was perhaps always simmering beneath the surface. Watching my father operate his first, hand-made still at the tender age of seven had a profound effect on me.”
He admits that the sense of pride he felt after having tried his father’s single malt when he was 15 years old – both the unaged eau-de-vie and the aged product – really set things in motion. “What’s happening now, in a way, seemed inevitable,” he concludes.
After university, military service, and a trip to West Africa, Sacha was faced with the inevitability the majority of us not coming from “old money” face: work. “An epiphany struck my entrepreneurial mind at the age of 25,” he recalls. “I decided to approach my father with this wild, if not also seemingly obvious, idea. Why not have a ‘cosa nostra,’ our own thing?” And that, as they say, was that.
Chambre Noire.
Anyone reading this who has actually set up a distillery (of any size) knows that there are a few moving parts involved – outside of a passion for distilling, a vision and (hopefully someone else’s) money.
“In my mind, we first had to find the right partner, and that is exactly what we did,” Sacha explains. “Guy Dostie owns and operates six businesses, all of which revolve around metallurgy, principally stainless steel. With roughly 40 years of business experience, he also provided input that has been extremely valuable from a business and operations standpoint. With his collaboration, we have the right location and custom-made equipment. From our maceration tanks to our – first and only – custom made in Quebec copper pot still, which we have outfitted to a shipping container with his assistance.”
The remaining equipment was purchased from local purveyors. Once all was in place, the Le Chêne applied for a federal excise license and a Quebec distillers license, both of which were received (something of a coup in and of itself considering what Canadian government paperwork can be like).
This arrangement can produce roughly 1600 gallons of Chambre Noire from a single monthly run. In a year, this translates to anywhere from 70 to 80 thousand units bottled by hand, an amount Sasha figures could multiply tenfold once bottling is automated.
Satisfied with the packaging and production methods, the Le Chêne submitted Chambre to the SAQ – the Quebec wine and spirits distribution monopoly. The duo then got to work on completing a first order once the product was formally accepted for distribution.
Sacha and Simon Le Chene.
Unlike the coffee-flavoured liqueurs we’re all probably familiar with (Kaluha, Tia Maria, et al), Chambre Noire is just barely sweet and is essentially a “cold brew” spirit (clocking in at 35 per cent ABV) made with only four ingredients: coffee beans, premium grain spirit, spring water, and a dash of maple syrup for balance. Deciding to craft a spirit as, well, different as Chambre Noire is was a deliberate move to set the products from Maison Le Chêne apart from the crowd.
“With 280 made-in-Quebec gins available on the market, it was agreed that this was not something we wanted to do,” Sacha adds (somewhat dryly). “A quick overview of the local and international coffee spirit offerings led us to the conclusion that though there are many viable options, they were all liqueurs; all too sweet and all relatively boring both from an organoleptic and branding perspective. So, we asked ourselves, how should this be done if it is to be done correctly?”
Part of the formula for success for a quality spirit is, of course, selecting the best raw material. And since the ingredient list for Chambre Noire is pretty bare-bones – and all-natural (coffee beans, water, alcohol, sweetening agent) these ingredients needed to be top-notch.
Our coffee comes from Nicaragua, sourced in Comarca Yasica Sur, from a family-run farm,” Sacha reveals. “Our beans are handpicked from certified-origin plants, among the best varietals of Arabica in the world. Fincafé is our purveyor. The family owns the plantation and ships the beans to Montreal to be roasted and cut to our specifications.”
Water comes from a natural source in Warwick, Quebec, with no municipal water used whatsoever.
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As alluded to, Chambre Noire differs from the aforementioned international “spiked” coffee brands in every way. First, no essences or coloring agents are used. Second, production involves a total cold maceration and extraction, not just an alcoholization of a brewed coffee, like some of the local and international brands. Thirdly, the spirit is normalized to between 35 to 40% ABV. A hint of maple syrup is added to take off the edge. The result is an actual coffee spirit that stands on its own, dissimilar in every way to any other commercial product I’m aware of.
So, what does the future hold for Maison Le Chêne? Sacha says that the focus will be on growing retail sales, hopefully with indirect assistance from the licensee community.
“Retail is the engine of prosperity for our industry,” Sacha contends. “Licensee sales and collaborations are more an extension of your branding and marketing pursuits initially. We choose the establishments with whom we want to work and with whom we feel there is brand coherence. These collaborations further feed our digital strategy and subsequently reinforce our retail sales. With growth and notoriety, licensees seek you out as their clientele start asking for Chambre Noire. No one wants to feel left out.”
In terms of selection expansion, the plan is to “stay narrow and go deep,” which means establishing Chambre Noire as the industry’s premiere coffee spirit. That being said, I was given a “sneak peek” into what might be the next commercial offering from Maison Le Chêne. It took a bit of coaxing, but here’s what I was able to extract from Sacha when asked about the development of the new offering:
“This is a secret. But in the spirit of camaraderie, I’ll share it with you. Without fully divulging our methods, we make an alternate batch of Chambre Noire and proceed to distill it in our copper pot still. This produces a very elegant and perfumed coffee eau-de-vie. We normalize it to about 50 percent ABV with maple water and serve it ice cold. It’s a revelation. I’ll be sure to let you know once it’s commercialized as for now it is just a prototype.”
I can attest that this clear, high-octane spirit is very, very good. It would only make sense to call it Chambre Blanche, but I’ll defer to Sacha and Simon’s better judgement.
If you’re interested in knowing more: www.maisonlechene.com and Meta assets @maisonlechene for IG and @chambrenoire for FB. The SAQ website is a great source as well, linked here.
– Tod Stewart is a senior editor with VineRoutes
