Benedictine Distillery

One emerges from the Palace into a gorgeous Gothic/Renaissance/ArtNouveau warehouse/museum surmounting the actual distillery. The show continues...

Thus

Our founder

The complex burned down in the early 1890s, but le Grand
rebuilt it even more opulently

Portrait of le Grand

Helpful model of the present complex

Beautiful unsigned painting of Fecamp

Six giant stained glass windows in the roof
illuminate the warehouse/museum

"Imitated but never equalled"--Benedictine has had more
than a thousand imitators and knock-offs; here, a sampling,
and not a few from the Etats Unis

Part of a wonderful collection of posters, including

This great 1898 Mucha

Another

Another of the beautiful ceiling lights

And a look back at the Salle Alexandre le Grand

Now entering the industrial part of the place...waiting for our
guide; a collection of ceramic containers for the 27 botanicals

Touch and sniff

The process

In the distillery

Big vats

Aging...not very long actually; the flavor here is in the ingredients,
not the barrels or age

Only about 4% is consumed in France...the rest in Asia, North
America and Europe, in that order; currently they make
standard Benedictine liqueur, B&B (Benedictine and brandy;
mostly for the American market), and a Benedictine/Cognac
mixture called 1868

The cafe; a tasting is included in the tour; I had the 1868, of
course

And at the end of the tour/tasting, you can do
the breathalyzer thing; this is France; with WC
Fields, I always say, if you can lie down on the
floor without holding on, you're not drunk

Benedictine Palace

It is a far longer story than I can tell. Probably there is some truth to the monk/alchemist Dom Bernardo Vincelli making something like Benedictine, perhaps in the 16th century. The recipe was lost in the French Revolution. Later, in the 19th century, a Fecamp wine merchant with the improbable but fitting name of Alexandre Le Grand announced he had found the recipe (made of grain alcohol and 27 botanicals), and began producing it in Fecamp, associating it in every way possible with the Benedictines and their abbey. Le Grande was bit of a marketing genius, I think. In any case, Benedictine became a raging success, Le Grande patented it, and thinking even bigger, built the Palace to showcase it and its purported abbaciale heritage. The Palace, dedicated in 1900, is a gorgeous Gothic/Renaissance/Art Nouveau structure that houses both an art collection of some note and the distillery. Here is the briefest of tours of the Palace.

Yes, it really is a distillery

Beautiful glass throughout; here's Alexandre and friends designing
the place

And Dom Bernardo devising the recipe

Ceiling of the Gothic Room, like an over-turned Viking ship;
must remember our roots

Medieval devotional tryptich

15th century Pieta

Library of incunibles

Alexandre le Grand receiving the recipe for the spirit (this is
metaphorical, hopefully)

Boiling St. Ursula, 15th century polychrome

St. Roch (patron saint of flashers and pederasts)

Rotunda in one of the halls

15th century St. Denis

Ceiling treatment

Detail of stained/painted window treatment

In the metal room (locks, weapons, etc.)

Keys and two 16th century wedding chests

These boots were made for walking

Among manuscripts on display, King St. Louis'
1269 charter to the abbey

And several illuminated texts

The paintings did not knock me out; here, The
Wicked Rich Man, Flemish, 16th

And The Good Rich People; apparently part of a set

Board room; too much spot and incandescent lighting, throughout

The Le Grand mansion, adjacent to the palace/distillery; Madame
Le Grand still lives there (a distant descendant, I presume)

Fecamp Weddings

We were sitting by the ruins of the ducal palace, listening to
the peeling of the abbatiale bells, when up rides a noisy motocycle
gang and arrays itself about the church doors; les anges de l'enfer,
I am thinking, and I set the camera to video in order to capture
the impending shoot-out; more charitably, as always, Vicki opines
that it is probably a mass blessing of motorcycles; such things
do occur, she assures me; later, a limo and some fancy cars arrive
at the Mairie around the corner; still later, as we're riding around
in the navette, we hear the wild honking of horns in the traffic
(everybody joins in) and are passed by the wedding party, the
motorcade led by the motos

An hour later, we are atop Cap Fagnet, and there are the fancy
cars and the wedding party (meanwhile, we hear still more
blaring of horns in the town below...) 

Wedding party of the motor-cyclistes

Les anges de l'enfer readying themselves for special photo-opps

Meanwhile, wedding party #2 arrives

Thus; there is a fancy restaurant over behind the chapel

The scene composes

The bride heads over to the array of motos, her train born by
flower girls

For more photos

Thus

And thus

As we were waiting for the navette, wedding party #3 began
arriving

Thus

And thus; no motorcycles needed; as the afternoon wore down, 
we heard two more horn-honking processions in town