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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’.

Diageo – From London to the whole world

Approximately 33,000 employees are employed worldwide at Diageo, the market leader in premium spirits, with Smirnoff (vodka), Johnnie Walker (whiskey), J&B (Scotch whiskey), Baileys (liqueur), Captain Morgan (rum), Cuervo (tequila) and Tanqueray (gin), Guinness beer and branded wines. Production takes place all around the world: from Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, Spain and Africa, to the USA, Canada, Latin America, Australia, India and the Caribbean. The global corporation emerged in 1997 from the merger between Guinness and GrandMet. 180 markets around the world are handled from its London headquarters.

A lot of work and lots of attention to detail go into creating the in-depth product descriptions on Diageo’s website. Information and analysis is provided about issues ranging from detailed descriptions of the production down to the most minute ingredients. Finally, they are aware of the size of their company and also of their responsibilities as a supplier of alcoholic products. The name Diageo was also deliberately chosen – it represents their agenda. Put together from ‘dia’ (the Latin word for ‘day’) and ‘geo’ (the Greek word for ‘world’), it means that every day people are celebrating all over the world with products from their company. These products open up possibilities never dreamed of for special days and nights, marking special life events and even making the smaller things in life feel magical.

Participation in the World Spirits Award was magical: there was double gold for Tanqueray No. 10 (Spirit of the Year 2016), gold for Gordon’s London Dry Gin and Tanqueray London Dry Gin, as well as silver for Tanqueray Rangpur.

Magi – Rivo Gin: Magic in a bottle

The mountains, the wind, deep blue water, sparkling waves – the essence of all this is captured in each bottle of Rivo Gin and it conveys the magic of this location. You can feel yourself transported to a sunny spring day on Lake Como. A light breeze brings fresh fragrances of the herbal flowers, which grow on the mountainsides. Over centuries, they have been gathered by the women in the area to make traditional medicines, some even say they have magical healing properties. ‘Foreaging’ – the art of gathering wild herbs in ‘the wilderness’ – provides a connection to nature. The special combination of plants, which have never before been joined together in a gin, resulted in the ‘aroma bouquet’ of the Rivo as a unique imprint of the natural beauty of the region.

The twelve botanicals include thyme, aniseed and lemon balm, combined with juniper, coriander, cardamom and angelica. The aromatic herbs are harvested three times a year. A lot of time and skill is needed, but it is deeply satisfying manual work. Only the finest Italian corn brandy is used, and each ingredient is separately macerated and distilled. The botanicals are used when fresh, to intensify the aroma. Magic as a theme also inspires the packaging and labelling of Rivo Gin. Geometric lines combine to form abstract elements, which are symbolic of the mountains and the waves of the lake.

At the World Spirits Award, there was gold for RIVO Lake Como Foraged Gin.

WOB Destillerie Wolfram Ortner: 37 Years of Perfection in Taste & Design

This ‘crazy idea’ was launched in 1989 with the premiere of a diva dressed in raspberry-red. Wolfram Ortner has always been committed to fine fruit distillates and has produced them to uncompromising perfection. His penchant for wines matured in wooden barrels led to his first apple brandy being matured in French Limousin oak barrels in 1990. In 2000, apples from the Lavant Valley were stored in Allier, Limousin, Never and Trançais barrels. The first whiskies were produced in 1996, and in 2016 the series of six special rums, fermented with different yeasts and bottled from approx. 40% vol. to cask strength, was launched.

The handling of wood has been perfected over more than three decades, using different types of oak and degrees of toasting. Since 2013, the barrels are no longer toasted, but the wood has been heavily charred. This required significantly longer storage times for the products: Hefe 2014 (yeast) and Apfel 2015 (apple) were bottled at cask strength in 2024, while the Dark 1 and Dark 5 rums were also bottled after around ten years. 2013 also saw the start of the exciting development of recipes for ‘drugs’ made from dried herbs and spices.

On 25 November 2019, there was an explosion at the distillery, and it was not rebuilt. In spring 2024, the last barrels were emptied, twelve products were bottled and the stylish ‘FAP’ line (brandy, rum and whisky) was created. Two apple-wood brandies and a wine yeast-wood product were the fiery finale with the name ‘Omega’. Ortner’s passion hasn’t ended yet, as there are plenty of WOB Spirits in stock, available in the store and at www.wob.at.

At the World Spirits Award 2025, there was Gold for KGB Kräuter-Gewürz Bitter - a true classic in the bitters category.