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Château Steinle Manufaktur: Globally recognised gin from what’s probably the smallest distillery in the world

Frank Steinle is an economist and marketing specialist – and a great lover of handmade products, good food, good wines and the best gin. In 2013, the idea was born for his first products. His philosophy is clear: excellent products cannot be created on an industrial scale. They can only develop based on a foundation of high-quality ingredients, when you know where they come from, and how they are produced and processed. Craft distilleries are the future: Quality before quantity!

Everything is manual work here: grinding the botanicals, distilling over real fire, filling, labelling, and numbering the bottles. “We only use high-quality alcohol based on wine and we don’t use any additives. The gins contain 100% of the essential oils of the botanicals.”

HERRLICH GIN is a straight London Dry Gin with 28 botanicals, BAYERISCH GIN is a hearty Bavarian Dry Gin with a hop and malt flavour and 32 botanicals, refined with some stone pine wood, PINKCAT GIN is a tart, fresh and fruity Old Tom Gin with 29 botanicals and the original ULMER GIN (a registered trademark) is a fine London Dry Gin with 20 botanicals. This year, the company is participating with its second commissioned work: HONIG GIN is a London Dry Gin with 10 organic botanicals. The organic honey is handmade in Ulm by the company Bienesto. HERRLICH BLUE MAGIC Dry Gin is also presented with 29 organic botanicals. It is refined with spices and transforms from royal blue to violet with tonic water.

At the World Spirits Award, there was gold for BAYERISCH GIN and HONIG GIN, and silver for HERRLICH GIN BLUE MAGIC, ULMER GIN, HERRLICH GIN and PINKCAT GIN.

Hardenberg-Wilthen AG: Every brand tells its own story

Hardenberg-Wilthen AG is a family enterprise based in Nörten-Hardenberg in Lower Saxony – around a ten-minute drive from Göttingen – and with branches in Wilthen. Founded around 1700, the company has positioned itself as one of the biggest manufacturers of brand spirits on the German market today.

In accordance with the motto ‘innovation from tradition’, it is in a process of constant change and treads pioneering paths in many respects. The best example is the production and visitor centre HARDENBERG DISTILLERY in Nörten-Hardenberg, which focusses in particular on the regional premium segment. This includes German innovations such as VON HALLERS GIN, Beverbach Whiskey, HARDENBERG KORN and KINETIC SINGLE ESTATE GERMAN VODKA.

The whole portfolio of Hardenberg-Wilthen AG also comprises, alongside well-known German spirits brands from their own manufacturing, internationally established and successful premium spirits that are sold through food retailers and gastronomy in Germany. The product range includes all important categories – brandy, gin, Korn (grain brandies), herb liqueurs, liqueurs, rum, vodka and whiskey – as well as non-alcoholic distillates.

The transparency of the company can be experienced with all the senses on guided tours, at workshops and tastings on site, or digitally. Whether at the distillery with its visitor centre or at the KeilerLaden shop: you are right in the midst of where it is all happening, because pleasure is a shared experience at Hardenberg.

At the World Spirits Award, gold was awarded to MAJAWI Spiced Rum and VON HALLERS GIN FOREST.

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’.