GE Massenez Liqueur de Roquefort (750ml)

Distillerie Massenez dates to 1870, when Jean-Baptiste Massenez began distilling in Urbeis, a small village in the Val de Villé on the Alsatian side of the Vosges. His son Eugène was the first to distill wild raspberries, the eau-de-vie that made the family’s name. Later generations brought the house into the world of fine dining, and Paul Bocuse himself opened the family’s new distillery in 1979. Massenez is still known for its classic fruit brandies, but it has also become known for inventive, chef-minded liqueurs, and this one may be its boldest. At its heart is Roquefort, the raw sheep’s milk blue that in 1925 became the first French cheese protected by appellation. By law it can only be matured in the caves cut into the Combalou rock above Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in Aveyron, where natural fissures called fleurines draw cool, humid air through the cellars. Massenez uses Roquefort Société, aged in the Caves Baragnaudes, macerates it in spirit, and then sweetens it into a clear liqueur at 25% alcohol. The result is milky and unmistakably blue, finishing sweet, and it works as an aperitif, an after-dinner pour beside a cheese board, or a splash in a walnut and chicory salad or a fruit dessert. The two-Michelin-star chef Patrick Henriroux even uses it in his leek mille-feuille. It is a century and a half of Alsatian distilling turned toward the most storied cave in French cheese.