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Dolleruper Destille: Regional products from Northern Germany

Near to Flensburg, Germany’s northernmost distillery can be found in a timber-framed house. The copper still, with which distillates from various fruits have been manufactured since 2003, is the showpiece of the building. In 2014, Dr. Axel Hartwig and Werner Sauer took over operations. Originally from the brewery business, they discovered a great passion for distilling and developing new products, so now also whisky, rum, gin and other spirits are available. Unusual ingredients also find their way into the distilling vat for products such as carrot brandy and cocoa spirit.

Because an environmentally friendly procedure is important for the distillers, many distillates are organically certified. As members of the FEINHEIMISCH network and the Nature Conservancy Foundation, regional production is paramount. The ingredients used are (as far as available) harvested in the Schleswig-Holstein countryside. The hand-bottled distillates can be tasted and purchased in the Bioland-certified on-site shop. Show-brewing and distilling seminars offer deeper insights into the subject. The young team has expanded due to increased production, whereby innovation and university knowledge meet many decades of experience – the perfect foundation for creative, high-quality recipes in tune with the latest trends.

At the World Spirits Award, there was gold for Die Hand Buddhas.

Breaks Premium Dry Gin – Extraordinary recipe

Breaks Premium Dry Gin is manufactured in a small distillery in Karlsruhe in the traditional London Dry style. By hand, in many single stages, from the careful inspection of the hand-picked ingredients to the bottling and numbering of the elegant bottles. The naturally secret recipe is extraordinary: as well as juniper berries, there is also fennel, camomile, cardamom, coriander, cubeb pepper, lavender, larch needles, orange blossoms, liquorice, cinnamon flowers and lemon peel. All botanicals come from controlled organic farming and are macerated in organic agricultural alcohol.

The ‘man behind the distillate’, Harald Reinholz, began his first distilling efforts in 2014 – his grandfather was a passionate distiller. After a year of experimenting, he settled on a final recipe: a harmonious composition of herbs, fruits and spices, fresh and fruity, gentle and mild. How you drink Breaks Gin, whether neat, on ice, with tonic or in a cocktail (recipes on the website!), is your own personal decision – either way, it’s grounds for a small timeout under the slogan ‘Take Your Break’. Anyone wanting to enjoy a ‘holistic’ gin experience, will also find glasses, mugs, T-shirts, caps and other accessories as well as aromatic liquid soaps in the Online Shop.

At the World Spirits Award, there was gold for Breaks Reserve Dry Gin, and silver for Breaks Reserve (barrel-matured) Dry Gin.

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’.