World's Best Digestif 2025 — what this award means to us

We didn’t expect it. Not at that level, at least.

When the World Drinks Awards 2025 results dropped in London on 17 April, our phone rang almost immediately. L’Alchimie Végétale, our flagship, had just been named World’s Best Digestif. Not best French digestif, not best European digestif — best digestif, period, across all categories combined.

What this competition is

The World Drinks Awards have been organised since 2007 by The Drinks Report, the reference professional magazine. Each category is judged blind by an international panel of sommeliers, mixologists and critics. Liqueurs submitted come from more than 40 countries. For 2025, this is the first time a French botanical liqueur has won the top digestif title.

What this changes

First, demand doubled in two weeks. Our 50 cl stocks were gone within days — we had to accelerate bottling, call back producers, revise our summer harvest schedule. We also saw distributors from Asia and North America arrive — distributors we had never contacted.

Second, confidence. When you start in 2021 in a village of 3,000 people, you sometimes wonder if you’re just kidding yourselves. This award is an external validation of what we’ve built — the 27 plants, the three years of trials, the marginal adjustments, the failures. That matters.

What it doesn’t change

The recipe stays the same. Exactly the same. We resisted the temptation to adjust anything after the award — that would betray what pleased the jury. Plants still come from our partner foragers and market gardeners, mostly organic. The craft remains hand-made, in small batches.

The award doesn’t change our public price either. L’Alchimie Végétale stays at €22 for the 20 cl and €115 for the magnum. Some have asked why — because we want our neighbours, our friends, our early customers to be able to keep buying it.

What comes next

Since January we’ve been working on a 2025 vintage cuvée, with a slight variation around liquorice and gentian. It will launch in autumn, in a very limited edition. We’re also thinking about reopening production of the Cuvée Michel — our tribute to an old childhood friend who won’t see this award, but who would have laughed a lot.

Thanks to everyone who has walked with us. We carry on.

— Étienne and Guillaume