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Luding Group: Vodka Tchaikovsky as a high-spirited homage to the famous composer

At the beginning of the 1990s, the modern distillery ‘Fortuna’ was launched in a green field in the south of Russia – in the Krasnodar region, a strip of land with spa resorts and health centres. The distillery has specialised in unusual products, in a region with a particularly green fingerprint. The vodka created in honour of the great Russian composer Tchaikovsky is special. The concept for this exceptional product is comparable with one of his musical scores: the work ‘Swan Lake’ served as an inspiration. Art enthusiasts can thus immerse themselves in the history of Russian estate life in the 19th century. The traditional white and blue colours underline the purity of this vodka.

The technical particularities span a wide quality-orientated spectrum: from the selected wheat, their own well water and the special treatment of the distillate with skimmed milk powder to the crystal-clear filtration with active birch coal. With so much perfectionism and monitoring of the individual production steps, the result is an especially gentle, animating and very typical vodka based on wheat. After the diluting of alcohol and pure distillate, the production process is continued with maturation in steel tanks. The aim is to ‘wed’ both ‘waters’, resulting in an especially harmonious vodka.

At the World Spirits Award 2022, Vodka Tchaikovsky was awarded double gold and honoured as the best vodka with the title ‘Spirit of the Year’.

Avatea: Renaissance of an exceptional product

Arue is a French municipality with around 10,000 inhabitants in the northeast of Tahiti in the overseas territory of French Polynesia. The first pure rum is distilled and bottled here as the result of a research project. It took almost six years to track down the traditional sugar cane varieties and start to grow them again on virgin land. The Avatea company, based in the town of Paea, provided the know-how, namely twenty years of experience in the distillation of spirits. The rather satisfying result is Mana’o Tahiti rum, whose name means ‘to think of’ or ‘remember’ something in the local language, Reo. It is a tribute to the rediscovered raw materials, which today are organically farmed.

Mana’o is a prime press rum based on a single uninterrupted initial process. The sugar cane stalks are cut early in the morning while it is still cool and immediately transported to the mill and crushed without the addition of water. The resulting juice is filtered and fermented on site by adding organic yeast, reaching five percent by volume after five days. Further processing takes place in Paea, where the product is distilled and only the heart is left to mature. The cask strength of 89 percent by volume is gradually reduced to 60 percent to ensure that the fine aromas are preserved. This is followed by at least six months of ageing in 3,000-litre stainless steel tanks. The selected distillates are then sent to Rangiroa atoll to mature further in French oak barrels under the influence of the sea air.

At the World Spirits Award 2025, there was Double Gold for Mana’o Rangiroa and Mana’o Tahiti Blanc, and Gold for Mana’o Tahiti Paille.

EDMUNDs Liköre: Modern liqueurs following old pharmacy traditions

In the Rats-Apotheke pharmacy in Bötzingen am Kaiserstuhl, Dr. Martin Kullmer produces four herb liqueurs by hand and in small batches. Only the very best raw materials are used, which meet the stringent requirements of the European pharmacopoeia. The enthusiasm for pharmaceutical preci-sion, the love for high-quality spirits and an accidentally discovered recipe for liqueur awakened an unexpected passion for liqueurs in the pharmacist. And so, in autumn 2017, the EDMUNDs brand was founded – in memory of his deceased grandfather, Edmund Dunkel. He was also a passionate phar-macist and principled connoisseur, who impressed his customers with his homemade liqueurs. Based on this traditional recipe, his grandson has developed four new, individual liqueurs to suit modern-day tastes.

The elegant Maranera bitter combines the aromas of aniseed, fennel and coriander with the subtle spiciness of ginger, galangal and cubeb pepper, complemented by the invigorating acerbity from bit-ter orange and wormwood. Krambambuli is a complex liqueur with floral, spicy, fruity and bitter components. The leading role with Kolanitida, an intensively fragrant liqueur, is played by the kola nut. And the powerful Bitterfürst is characterised by tangy herbal notes and spicy sweetness – exciting and impressive.

At the World Spirits Award, there was gold for EDMUNDs Bitterfürst and EDMUNDs Krambambuli, and silver for EDMUNDs Maranera and EDMUNDs Kolanitida.