World-Spirits Online Guide Abo – order now

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’.

Georg Hemmeter – XUXU, Escorial, SILLA EL FUERTE

Georg Hemmeter – strawberry drinks with exceptional flavour guaranteed

The name Georg Hemmeter – a company of the Underberg Group – stands for innovative spirits, in particular the XUXU range. The fresh and fruity strawberry drink contains 66 percent fruit plus crystal-clear vodka, rounded off with a dash of lime. The harmony between the sweetness of the fruit and just 15% alcohol by volume is created using a special production method. XUXU Ten, the little luxury in a 250 ml aluminium bottle with only 10% alcohol by volume, is dressed to party – it is still relatively new to the market, yet is already at home in all the world’s top party venues.
XUXU can be served in so many different ways: chilled, neat, on crushed ice, as a dessert topping, with sparkling wine or with other mixers – XUXU tastes heavenly and offers fresh and fruity pleasure. Welcome to Berrydise!

Initially the absolute top star in Greece, XUXU is now also number 1 in Russia, and extremely popular in Turkey and Italy too.


XUXU Strawberry & Vodka Drink and XUXU Ten won Gold at the World Spirits Award 2014.

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.

Organic Juniper: Purism for true gin lovers

Sometimes it seems as though many distillers have forgotten what gin is all about. Why else would we have all these complicated aromas that don’t just sing, but shout? This is the view at Juni Gin Lab in Nottingham, the place to be for dedicated gin fans – an exclusive location with a carefully stocked bar. As well as their own Juni gins, there are innovative cocktails, wines, beers, ciders and alcohol-free drinks to choose from.

The ‘lab’ can tell you about the history of gin, about Juni 93 and its home in Serbia, as well as offering an insight into distillation techniques, mixing and harmonising botanicals for home recipes that can be produced in traditional copper stills. Of course, there are also tastings and even a Cocktail Master Class.

With Juni 93, Alyasir Mendly, Sales Manager at Organic Juniper, together with the Master Distiller, Tom Masters, has put an original London Dry made entirely with natural ingredients on the market. Made with hand-selected, Serbian organic juniper berries from their own land in the highlands of Pest at nearly 5,000 feet above sea level. And, instead of transporting the berries all the way to England, they have settled in Serbia to meet the locals and to get involved in all the work, from picking to sorting to distilling.

At the World Spirits Award, there was silver for Juni 93 London Dry Gin and Juni 93 Cask-Aged Gin.