Guide · Breton drinks
Both made from cider, pommeau (a fruity apéritif) and lambig (Brittany’s apple brandy, its answer to calvados) are two AOCs of Brittany. What they are, what to drink them with, and where to taste them in the 12th arrondissement.
Ty Louis, a Breton restaurant at 240 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, between Bastille and Nation, pours and sells the two AOC drinks Brittany makes from cider, from the Gilles Leizour range: pommeau de Bretagne (17%), a sweet apéritif of fresh apple must blended with cider brandy, and lambig (40%), the Breton cider brandy served as a digestif. Order them at the table, or take a bottle home from the restaurant’s Breton grocery.
The short version
Breton apples do not only make cider. Distil that cider and you get lambig, the Breton cider brandy, also sold as “fine Bretagne”. Blend fresh apple must with that lambig and you get pommeau de Bretagne, a soft, fruity apéritif.
Both are AOCs (appellation d’origine contrôlée, France’s protected designation of origin): a set of rules, a defined area, ageing in oak casks. One opens the meal, the other closes it. Here is how to tell them apart, and what we pour at Ty Louis.
The two AOCs
Two children of Breton cider: one opens the meal, the other closes it.
A mistelle, meaning fresh juice stopped from fermenting by adding spirit: two thirds fresh apple must, one third lambig, then 14 to 24 months in oak casks. Amber and round, with candied fruit and spice, sweet without being heavy.
How to serve it · Before the meal, chilled (8 to 10 °C), on its own or with foie gras, melon or a blue cheese.
Brittany’s cider brandy: cider distilled, then aged at least two years in oak. The Breton counterpart of calvados, golden, with fresh apple and vanilla, warming rather than harsh.
How to serve it · After the meal, at room temperature. Younger bottles also work over ice before dinner, or in a cocktail.
If you know calvados
Calvados is the reference most English speakers have for apple brandy, and it is the right starting point. Lambig belongs to the same family: cider, distilled, then aged in oak. The difference is where it comes from. Calvados is Normandy’s, lambig is Brittany’s, and each has its own appellation, so neither name can go on the other’s bottle. In Brittany, lambig is simply the local equivalent: the brandy you are offered at the end of a Breton meal.
The two regions even share a custom. The trou normand, a glass of calvados halfway through a long meal, has a Breton twin, the trou breton, done with lambig. Pommeau follows the same pattern: Normandy makes one too, under a separate appellation, and if you have had pineau des Charentes, pommeau is the apple version of the idea.
Reading the label
Bottles and menus in France stay in French. These are the words you will meet around lambig and pommeau.
Our selection
Our Breton grocery stocks the lambig (fine Bretagne, 40%) and the pommeau de Bretagne AOC “Ker” (17%) from the Gilles Leizour range, made by the Warenghem distillery in Lannion from the Leizour orchards in Tonquédec, in the Côtes-d’Armor. The pommeau goes before the meal, the lambig after a kig ha farz or a kouign-amann. Drink them here or take a bottle away.
The lambig smells of fresh apple and goes down far more gently than its 40% suggests. The pommeau balances sweetness and acidity, and it is the glass we suggest with the foie gras tatin on the menu (14,50 €). Our kitchen also uses pommeau de Bretagne to prepare the foie gras we sell at the grocery for the end-of-year holidays.
Two other ways to meet these spirits at the table: “La Traversée bretonne”, our set menu in four acts at 53 € per person, ends with three Breton liqueurs, fine de Bretagne among them, included in the price; and the Champagne gourmand (15 €), four Breton petits fours with a glass of champagne, also comes with the Breton spirit of your choice instead.
Breton cider Chouchen, Breton mead What to drink with Breton food The Breton grocery Getting here
Good to know
Lambig (“lahm-beeg”), also sold as fine Bretagne, is Brittany’s cider brandy. It is distilled from cider, aged at least two years in oak casks and bottled at about 40%. It has been an AOC, France’s protected designation of origin, since 2015, and it is drunk mostly as a digestif after the meal.
Same family, different region. Both are brandies distilled from cider and aged in oak; calvados comes from Normandy and lambig from Brittany, and each has its own appellation, so a bottle of one cannot be sold under the name of the other. If you like calvados, lambig is the Breton glass to try. The Breton custom of the trou breton is even modelled on Normandy’s trou normand, which is done with calvados.
An AOC apéritif made of two thirds fresh apple must and one third lambig, aged in oak casks. It is 16 to 18% alcohol, served chilled, and goes with foie gras or melon before the meal as well as with dessert. If you know pineau des Charentes, it works the same way, with apples instead of grapes.
Both come from Breton apples. Pommeau is a sweet, fruity apéritif (16 to 18%), a blend of apple juice and lambig. Lambig is a dry, powerful brandy (about 40%), distilled, that you sip as a digestif. One opens the meal, the other closes it.
A small glass of lambig drunk halfway through a long, generous meal, between two courses, to revive the appetite. It is the Breton version of the trou normand, done in Normandy with calvados.
Pommeau, chilled, goes with foie gras, melon, a blue cheese or an apple dessert. Lambig is sipped at room temperature after a kig ha farz or a kouign-amann, or as a trou breton in the middle of the meal.
At Ty Louis, a Breton restaurant at 240 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine in the 12th arrondissement, between Bastille and Nation, one metro stop from Gare de Lyon on line 1 (Reuilly-Diderot). We pour the Gilles Leizour lambig and pommeau as an apéritif or a digestif. We are open non-stop Tuesday to Saturday, 12 pm to 11 pm.
Yes, at the Breton grocery inside Ty Louis: the Gilles Leizour lambig (fine Bretagne, 40%) and the pommeau de Bretagne “Ker” (17%), both AOC. They are made by the Warenghem distillery in Lannion from the apples of the Gilles Leizour orchards in Tonquédec, in the Côtes-d’Armor.
Reservations
Tuesday to Saturday, lunch and dinner, non-stop service.
240 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, between Bastille and Nation.