When she enters the room where the 19 copper stills from the Cointreau house, in Saint-Barthélemy-d’Anjou (Maine-et-Loire), stand, the face of Carole Quinton, 55 years old, master distiller, lights up with ‘a pretty smile. She is in her element, having ensured since 2016 that the recipes based on orange peels developed by Édouard Cointreau for the manufacture of “Cointreau l’unique” and “Cointreau noir” (alcohol abuse) are respected. is dangerous for health, consume in moderation). But by adding your own touch: quality of supplies, protection of the environment.
“My training as a plant variety breeder allowed me to develop these requirements,” she says. Just like his childhood in Brenne (Indre) in contact with nature. “I regularly go to Brazil, Ghana, Tunisia or Spain to talk with the suppliers of our 10,000 tonnes of oranges annually,” she explains. All have an environmental label. Only our sugar and our alcohol, produced in France, are not organic because the local market cannot yet satisfy our needs. »
His 22 years of experience with one of the spirits giants has strengthened his talents. At Cointreau, she supervises the charging of the stills by calculating their energy consumption as accurately as possible, tests new varieties of sweet and bitter peels in the style of great perfumers, and deciphers trends with cocktail art professionals. And when people worry about her situation as a woman in a very masculine environment, she replies that she succeeded another woman, Bernadette Langlais, and that she is “proud” of it.