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→The Story of Don Quijote
For Umberto Santi of Goblin Pub in Pavullo Nel Frignano and Franco Fratoni of the Livingstone Club in Florence, Don Quijote was not a simple beer or project they set out to create. It happened in a period when two paths intersected and histories briefly overlapped creating some magic of which only memories and Cantillon Don Quijote remain. Much like its namesake, the story of how this bottling came to be is a quixotic, rambling adventure involving one lambic brewer, two pub owners, and one artist whose friendship created one of the most renowned beers in lambic history. [[File:Don Quijote - Early Sketch 1.png|thumb|250px|left|Don Quijote - Early Sketch #1]]<br> <br>
One night in 2008, after departing from Goblin Pub and stopping along the way for naps and breakfast around the abbey at Orval, Umberto and Franco arrived at Cantillon for the second time that year. Umberto was already a familiar face around Cantillon after receiving and serving their beers for years at Goblin. According to Fratoni, “the time that the magic happened we were at the [[File:Don Quijote - Early Sketch 2.png|thumb|right|250px|Don Quijote - Early Sketch #2]]tables inside the brewery and we were very much ourselves, as usual, mixing with the locals and chatting with Jean Van Roy. At that time I was more or less a homebrewer with a 150-liter plant that I had bought from a closing brew pub. One of the recipes I had developed included bits of my personal history and philosophy. The characterizing ingredient was a kind of grapes that are (illegally) used to make a delicious sweet wine in Friuli, the Italian region where I was based for my military service.” A conversation began. <br> <br>
The grapes used in Don Quijote are called ''Uva Fragola'' – literally “strawberry-grape” – and were given the name due to their strong strawberry-like aromatic characteristics. A North American import to Europe and known in English as Isabelle grapes, ''Uva Fragola'' falls under the ''Vitis labrusca'' species of grape rather than the traditional wine grape family of ''Vitis vinifera'', and Italian and European law forbids the official marketing or sale of wine using it. Some countries, including France, had banned its cultivation outright in the early 20th century. According to one source, “''Vitis labrusca'' is historically blamed as the American grape variety that, when brought to Europe in the 1800s, carried the phylloxera plague” <ref name = "Modern Farmer"> Modern Farmer, [https://modernfarmer.com/2013/10/best-wine-cant-buy-fragolino/ The Best Wine You Can't Buy: Fragolino] </ref> even though its importation was already underway due to its resistance to the plague, while other sources note that it was banned due to the difficulty in controlling methanol levels during the production of wines.<ref name = "Vino Proibito"> , [http://www.ragusaoggi.it/il-vino-proibito/ Il Vino Proibito]</ref> However in the Veneto region of Italy, these grapes are used in the production of Fragolino, which is a sparkling sweet red wine somewhat similar to Moscato that is becoming more and more difficult to find. [[File:Don Quijote - Early Sketch 3.png|thumb|right|250px|Don Quijote - Early Sketch #3]]