Today is Zwanze Day 2026, and at a handful of carefully selected bars across the country, Cantillon is pouring something genuinely unlike anything they’ve released before.
This year’s release is actually two releases, both are vermouth-inspired lambic blends made in collaboration with Vermouth Sullivan, a small craft vermouth producer out of Besançon, France. Both clock in around 7% ABV.
Artémis La Blanche pairs a two-year-old Cantillon lambic with a dry white vermouth-style elixir built from gentian, coriander, rhubarb root, juniper, sage, angelica, wormwood, and a handful of other herbs and roots. Think earthy, tart, and citrusy with a Negroni-like herbal edge cutting through the classic lambic funk.
Artémis La Rouge takes Cantillon Kriek and blends it with a sweeter red vermouth-style elixir — verbena, marjoram, rose, apple, curry plant, wormwood — leaning fruitier and more aromatic, with the cherry base doing most of the heavy lifting before the botanicals arrive.
It’s a bold direction for a series that has always used Zwanze Day as permission to experiment. Which brings us back to 2019.
On September 28, 2019, Brick Store Pub in Decatur was one of those select venues (as they are again today.)
That year’s Zwanze was one of the was also really intriguing – A smoked lambic that was tapping more into historical flavor profiles, beyond being a another great damn beer release. Cantillon swapped 15% of the traditional malted barley for smoked malt, a nod to the reality that centuries ago, before modern kilning, virtually all beer would most likely have carried some smokiness from wood-dried grains. The brew dated back to March 2016, spending two years in barrel before being blended and kegged for its worldwide release.
The resulting beer walked a careful line. The smokiness was deliberate but restrained – showing up more on the palate than overwhelming your senses like a rauchbier might. It was the most presumably historically accurate gueuze you could pour, reminding you that this is most likely what this beer tasted like centuries ago.
Below, photos from Zwanze Day 2019 at Brick Store Pub in Decatur, Georgia.
