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Cantillon Don Quijote

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The Story of Don Quijote
As Umberto’s and Franco’s day was coming to an end at the brewery, Umberto asked Franco if it would be alright to tell Jean about the beer Franco had been producing with the Uva Fragola. Franco notes “I was quite nervous since I was well aware of the abyss between Jean and I in terms of brewing capabilities and history but I agreed… and for a magical series of circumstances we got asked if we were interested in providing those grapes for an original Cantillon.” As the two friends were exiting the brewery, they asked Jean why he would want to do this, and his reply, as seen on the label today, was “because we are crazy.”
[[File:Don Quijote - Early Sketch 4.png|thumb|left|250px|Don Quijote - Early Sketch #4]]
Jean recalls that the Uva Fragola were hand delivered by Franco and Umberto and likely received around the same time as his other grapes for lambics like Saint Lamvinus and Vigneronne, around mid-September. The grapes were placed into a barrel of around 350-400 liters and macerated for approximately two months, which coincides with the bottling date of November 19, 2008. Given the size of the barrel, Jean believes that they must have received around 80 to 100 kilograms of grapes. This amount of grapes also means that +/- 250 liters of lambic would have been extracted, though labels on the beer indicate that 120 bottles of each size (37,5cl and 75cl) were bottled. This would mean only 135 liters worth of bottles were fillefilled. Notably, the brewery also kegged 40 liters of the lambic, bringing the total known packaged production up to 155 liters. It may be that around 100 more bottles were packaged than indicated on the labels, but the records from the brewery are unclear.
[[File:Don Quijote - Early Sketch, colored.png|thumb|right|250px|Don Quijote - Sketch #4, colored]]
Perhaps one of Cantillon’s most iconic labels, the original artwork was drawn by Nicholas Butler, a childhood friend and next-door neighbor of Franco in Florence. After Umberto and Franco settled on a name for the beer to honor their quixotic nature, Nicholas was asked to come up with a concept for the label with an interpretation of the titular character. [[File:Don Quijote - Oil on Canvas.png|left|thumb|250px|Don Quijote - Oil on canvas]]Some of the initial sketches and ideas included Don Quijote attacking a windmill as he does in the story, as well as a less pensive Quijote closer to the windmill without Sancho Panza and Dapple in the background. After fleshing out the idea, the concept “matched in a perfect way to the sense of craziness, dream, melancholy, and idealistic vision of the world they had in mind”, according to Butler. Sadly, any digital renderings of the label are gone, but many of the original sketches and concepts are presented here scanned from the original papers. The fully colored version used here was commissioned by Franco and is oil on canvas. Most lambic aficionados immediately recognize the yellowed label of Don Quijote, but it is actually its second incarnation. Butler’s initial final draft of the label was a black and white label with a red sun and was initially approved by Umberto and mostly placed on the 75cl bottles. When those labels ran out, a second run was made with the colorized version that is most common today.
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