Combier Distillery

Saumur, France

La Distillerie Combier has been producing liquers since 1834 according traditional methods. The recipes remain a well-kept secret, but you can see the process and then have a tasting.

References:
  • Eyewitness Travel Guide: Loire Valley. 2007

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Details

Founded: 1834
Category: Museums in France

More Information

www.combier.fr

Rating

4.6/5 (based on Google user reviews)

User Reviews

Tom Shaw (8 months ago)
As others have said, you may be given the impression that you are booking a tour in English, but will be given two laminated info sheets to read while you listen to an hour of French presentation. Skip the tour and just taste the products if you can. The shop/tasting bar is a bit chaotic at the end of the tour so more reason to avoid the Tour.
Vijay Bhardwaj (9 months ago)
Old fashioned distillery producing innovative drinks. However production methods are antiquated and could be enhanced to improve productivity as well as profitabilty. I will not be surprised if this company is taken over in the next few years (i.e by a third country company - Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Brazilian, etc) as a way to enter the EU market. The demonstration was good.
Paul Kirby (9 months ago)
Thanks for a wonderful tasting today. Service was great, really friendly, we were given free tastes of everything they produce (which is a lot!).
Kyle Whitley (14 months ago)
We booked an English tour, but upon arrival at the distillery we were informed that the tour would need to be exclusively in French, as both French and English speaking guests had booked this time slot. It wasn’t clear why both languages couldn’t be spoken during the tour, or why preference was given towards native French speakers when we had booked an English tour. Fortunately the French guests were bi-lingual and told our guide that an English tour was fine for them. As it all worked out, still giving this tour five stars; but I would have been disappointed had the tour been in a language we didn’t understand. The tour itself was fascinating — we learned a brief history of Combier, the liquors and syrups produced, and the process of distilling triple sec. The original stills from the late 1800s are still in use! Our guide, Elise, was friendly, informative and interesting. She spoke fluent English & French. The tasting was also fun — it included their 4 most famous liquors (which are excellent), and she also offered us a taste of 2 others we were interested in trying. The tastes were small (maybe 1.5-2 ounces across all 6 tastes in total), which allowed us to enjoy them all responsibly. Overall, I’d highly recommend! The only thing that could have made this better was avoiding the initial confusion of our ‘English tour’ needing to be performed in French. While it all worked out (and Elise was kind enough to not charge us the 6€ fee as a result), I hope that Combier finds a way to ensure that all future guests get the tour in the language they signed up for.
Natalya M. Seddar (2 years ago)
Very disappointed. As someone who works in the tourist industry, I am always on a look out for new things to recommend to our guests, so we decided to try the original triple sec distillery in France. The website said that tours were in both English and French. Upon arrival we were informed that they are not. Most of our group didn't speak French. We were handed a little pamphlet and told that the girl giving the tour says exactly the same thing. Which was not the case at all. I spent the entire tour translating what I could while following along. The distillery visit lasted perhaps 15 minutes. The guide was very soft spoken and didn't bother to talk towards me, only including the native French speakers. The tasting was just as quick. The tasting glasses were the size of a medicine/pill cup. We were given barely enough to cover the bottom of our glass with no way to rinse our glasses or cleanse our palettes between each tasting. As a family who have visited many distilleries around the world, it was by far the worst tour we have ever experienced. Not worth your time.
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