In a discreet garden hut somewhere in the Auvergne countryside, two brothers passionate about distillation who take advantage of the night to launch their still... Al Capone's spirit is not far away!

Homemade distillation, or Home Distilling, is a practice that had its heyday during the American prohibition. Moonshiners (Moonshine meaning "moonlight" in English), produced their alcohol under cover of sight at night in isolated huts, to sell them to dark rooms that were beyond the control of the American police.

That's all it took to identify with this and become Home Distillers of Auvergne whisky. With one difference, the goal pursued!

Unlike Al Capone, Distillerie des Bughes was legal when it was created in 2014, and non-profit in its early days. Our philosophy has always been to produce low distillates with the best possible quality result. After several years of work, the results being good, we decided to take the distillery out of its isolated hut, to use beautiful traditional copper stills hammered by hand and to propose the fruit of this work and our passion for malt distillation.

From grain to stills

The Home Distillers range focuses on quality, with the best raw material, slow artisanal mixing to develop a maximum of flavours and precise distillation to select the best alcohols.

The grain used is slightly peaty malted barley, measured at 20 ppm, GMO-free. This gives character to Home Distillers products without peat being omnipresent when tasting. Malt brings a lot of aromas, which is why we work with 100% barley malt.

Malting is a process of germination / stopping the germination of the grain that will allow it to develop an enzyme that will transform the starch naturally present in the grain into sugar.
During this operation, peat can be used. Peat is a dry mud used during malting that gives a smoky taste to whisky.
ppm are millions of particles that measure the degree of impregnation of peat in the grain.
Humans perceive peat between 10 and 80 ppm.

The water used is mountain water from Haute-Loire. This is the water of Montagnac, a hamlet located at an altitude of 1000m near Mont Devès. It is also with the water used that whisky made in Auvergne takes its character.

Brewing is the first processing of the grain. The water is brought to a certain temperature and the grain is added so that it is stirred. At this point, the starch in the grain is transformed into fermentable sugar at first. It is the stage of saccharification. Then we make a second stage which allows us to develop sugars that are not fermentable but rich in aromas.

Fermentable sugars will be transformed into alcohol during fermentation under the action of yeasts. The brew will obtain an alcohol content of 5° after a few days. Whisky is a coarse beer that is distilled and aged!

Whisky distillation

Distillation control is our specificity. We have learned to make the most of the grain and only select the heating cores during distillation. These are the best alcohols. Our philosophy is that a good whisky should already be as soon as it comes out of the still, before it ages.

To obtain an exceptional heating core, we use 8 traditional copper stills, hand hammered, and we rigorously select the alcohols we keep.

All our spirits, whisky or not, are distilled twice and the selection of alcohols is made during the second pass. Each degree of alcohol can be associated with a different aroma. The selection of alcohols is therefore made on the nose to have the best possible aromatic palette.

The use of traditional copper stills helps us to move in this direction for the manufacture of our Auvergne whisky. Stills have a onion shape and a short gooseneck that produce fatty alcohols, lower in alcohol and more charged with aromas.

French whisky producer

Since 1st November 2020 we offer the first whisky of Haute-Loire. This is a very important new stage in the evolution of our Distillery whose adventure started a long time ago.

Indeed, this whisky is the fruit of 3 years of aging in a barrel of 500 liters which aged in the Velay and which previously contained Sherry Oloroso. It’s a Spanish wine, aged in a cask special by its size and the oak used. It will bring complexity to the slightly peated whisky (20 ppm) and fruity notes.

In 2022, two new slightly peated whiskies will be produced. These will be our first two whiskies from our collaboration with Tonnellerie Desfrieche in Calvados. These are casks containing Bordeaux red wine, having been sanded and roasted again.  

And it’s not over, on the town of Solignac-sur-Loire, not far from our workshop, a friend farmer grows his organic barley. From this proximity was born our common project: growing organic barley before malting it in Auvergne. Then, the malt is coming back to the distillery for a distillation of the first 100% Altiligerian organic whisky that will be mar<keted at the end of 2023.

Also in 2023, another new heavily peated whisky will also appear in our range. At this time, we will have a range of 5 differents French whisky.

And we already give you rendez-vous in 2029 for our first French whisky of 10 years of age.

The Home Distillers range

The range is composed of :

• Whisky: 100% slightly peated barley malt
• Tradition: 100% slightly peated barley malt
• Classic: 100% slightly peated barley malt
• Le Petit Beurre 100% Auvergne barley malt
• Pousse Café: 100% organic rye malt
• Rum: Distilled in Reunion and then refined at the distillery
• Gin Altitude: local plants
• Berezina vodka : 100% beet sugar
• Fine verbana: distilled verbana liqueur, aged and then complicated with maceration of other plants
• Verbana Padré: macerated organic verbana liqueur

You can find all the features in the datasheet of our products.