Faced with the success of his rum, Antoine Poircuitte has kept a cool head … and a smile. – © Etienne COLIN
It is nestled in the south of Hoi An, with its feet in the sand, that the Indochina Distillery was created in 2018. Meeting with its creator, Antoine Poircuitte.
Since 2018, Antoine Poircuitte has become in Hôi An, a small province of Quang Nam in Vietnam, a producer of agricultural rum. Master distiller, at the head of six people who work for, and especially with him, he distributes his spirits in seventeen countries including The Philippines, England, New Caledonia … as far as France and more particularly in Vesoul, at Christophe and Stéphane Trupcevic’s.
To a local newspaper, Antoine Poircuitte, who arrived in Vietnam in 2008, replied that after studying business and finance in France, it was not his thing and that he had headed for a master’s degree. in the wine business in Bordeaux. It is all true. In our editorial staff, he also spoke of his early childhood, his moments with his grandfather, the scents of mirabelle that escaped from the village distillery. The unconscious start of an incredible adventure that will take him to Asia, many years later.
Antoine Poircuitte turned 39 on March 25. It happened to Pusey when he was just an infant. His parents are pharmacists, now retired. Her older brother, one year her senior, became an orthopedic surgeon and her younger sister, who would later expand the family, was studying marketing.
At six, alongside
of his grandpa who distills
plum
He remembers the Gérôme college where he did not wear his pants on the benches. In 4e, in fact, his parents send him to a Jesuit boarding school in Reims where he will stay there until the baccalaureate. He obtained a scientific baccalaureate with an option in earth sciences and life. The earth, biology … A first step, without knowing it, in the profession.
Not so sure! When he was only six years old, his brain had already retained the scent of pears, plums that his grandfather Roger Poircuitte, distilled in Ferrières-lès-Scey. “I remember it very well,” says his grandson. “I keep the memory of the conviviality, the smiles, the very poetry that reigned around the still. I never missed this event every year. “
Become a distiller? Why not. From those moments, the idea of setting up on his own began to germinate in his mind. We will have to wait a little before the project becomes reality.
After the baccalaureate, he entered a business school in Lyon and then obtained a Master 2 in wine and spirits in Bordeaux. He discovered a second pleasure, that of traveling, and became a wine business in Hanoi. In 2008, he set foot in Asia for the first time, “to work in wine as a salesperson. I stayed in Hanoi for three years, then did the same for ASC in Hong Kong for two and a half years. “
Five years later, he returned to Paris without however completely abandoning Asia. In fact, within the Marie Brizard group where he has just signed a contract, he becomes responsible for the export zone. “I was then expatriated to Shanghai to take care of the local branch and become director of the Asia Pacific zone,” he recalls. At the end of 2016, he left Marie Brizard and returned to Vietnam. He draws up a Business Plan to finally set up “the project of his life”, to embark on the cultivation of sugar cane and above all, to open his rum factory.
The choice of Vietnam is not trivial. Antoine Poircuitte particularly appreciates the country which is also very rich in sugar cane. In his adopted country, there was no rum store either. The niche was all found!
He then proposes the project to two of his friends, Jan Visser and Julien Masset, both wine and spirits experts and enthusiasts, who follow him in the project.
The Covid comes to disturb the party
After the language barrier, the Vietnamese administrative lengths, the authorities accept. What undoubtedly weighed in the balance, is that the partners focused their approach on regional development. “Our project was going to boost the local economy,” says Antoine Poircuitte.
The Indochina Distillery was born. It is located by the sea, in the province of Quang Nam, in Hôi An exactly, a town of 150,000 inhabitants, “in a privileged natural environment where the conditions of production and aging in barrels are perfect”, describes the Vésulien. of birth.
The following year, their rums, which come in white, amber or aged, received several medals. It is success.
From the harvest of organic sugar cane, ensured from February to August, to the grinding, to the production of the juice then filtered and sent to fermentation tanks, the staff finally ensures the highly sensitive part, the distillation. Taken out at 70 degrees, the alcohol is cut with water then leaves in barrels six months for the youngest rums, eight for the others. Then comes the last step, bottling.
It has been producing between 50 and 70,000 bottles per year depending on the harvest and is making a name for itself all over the world.
The coronavirus has slowed down activity with an unavoidable closure of the site and the cancellation of visits. Indeed, the rum cellar has become, over the years, a tourist spot. A villa called Mai Tai, adjoining the distillery, offers stays with a view of the sea. A way of promoting the cultivation of sugar cane. “From one day to the next, everything stopped, the visits, the rental of the villa, until the production”, relates Antoine Poircuitte. “We have lost the tourists. We paid our fixed costs. We kept cash to pay our employees who we kept part-time. “
As alcohol producers, the distillery has also offered more than 400 liters of hydroalcoholic gel for the army, hospitals, schools, police …
“We took advantage of this forced shutdown to develop our export and focus on other areas of development, such as the development of new products, new recipes. “
For now, activity has resumed normally and each morning, Antoine Poircuitte watches the sun rise. Unperturbed and one to weather storms, he has a foolproof philosophy. “The sun rises every morning, so we get up with it!” “.
www.distillerie-indochine.com
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