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Blue Liquors – Blue Mauritius Gold

The name brings luxury to mind, as it actually refers to the legendary postage stamp which was issued in the British Crown Colony in 1847. It took 165 years for Blue Mauritius Rum to come on the market – yet rum production in the island kingdom in the middle of the Indian Ocean actually goes back even further. The first sugar cane plantations had already been set up by the French East India Company in the 18th century. Nearly 90 percent of the farmland of Mauritius is used for the cultivation of sugar cane.

Blue Mauritius Rum is produced using a basis of local sugar cane molasses, which is fermented for 36 hours before distillation. The alcohol obtained is reduced to 60 percent by volume and then stored in South African port wine barrels. Processing and blending is carried out in small quantities, filled in small batches, in striking, square bottles made of heavy French glass. A wooden stopper, with a seal in the form of an old coin and a suede strap and, of course, the ‘stamp-blue’ label round off the elegant outfit. A velvet-covered gift box is also available in this royal colour.

At the World Spirits Award, Blue Mauritius Gold received a gold medal.

Fürst von Wrede: Exquisite craftsmanship for all the senses

The story begins on 24th May 1815, as Field Marshal Carl Philipp Fürst von Wrede (1767–1838) received Ellingen Castle, a Teutonic Order castle, from King Max I. Joseph as a royal throne and male fief – today still the seat of the princely house. Out of respect and veneration for the brave field marshal, every firstborn son is given the first name Carl.

The umbrella brand FÜRST CARL combines a variety of businesses, which together act as advocates for the region, tradition, innovation, quality and sustainability. This includes the castle brewery, the brewery restaurant, the brewery shop, the summer toboggan run, the princely farm, management of the princely real estate and the princely forests. The business is currently run by the sixth and seventh generations of the family.

In late summer of 2018 rowanberries of the highest quality from the surroundings of Ellingen were selected for a remarkable speciality – the Franconian rowanberry spirit. The delicate fruits were harvested and their stalks removed by hand. The trick is to harvest the berries at exactly the right time and to carefully process them. Then the spirit is stored for months in cellars until maturity when its wonderful fruity aroma unfolds.

At the World Spirits Award, there was gold for Rowanberry, and silver for Fränkisches Kirschwasser (Franconian Kirsch).

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’.

Stock Polska – Prestige products with history

Polmos Lublin (known today as Stock Polska) was founded by the industrialist Emil Plage in Lublin in 1906 and was able to survive both world wars and the communist state leadership. The company was nationalised in 1948 and re-privatised in 2001. It traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange until 2005 and was sold in 2006. The new owners, Oaktree Capital Management, purchased the spirits division from Eckes Stock in 2007 and thereby laid the foundations for the current Stock Spirits Group. The company has its headquarters in Luxembourg, its service centre in Great Britain and its production sites in the Czech Republic, Italy and Poland.

Stock dates back to the year 1884 when Lionello Stock founded a beverages business in Trieste. He purchased a distillery in 1920 in what is currently part of the Czech Republic with the aim of tapping into new markets. This was followed by distilleries, bottling plants and warehouses in Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia. In the 1920s, Stock was one of the biggest companies of its kind in Europe.

After an absence of 70 years, Stock returned to Poland and began to manufacture at the historic site of Lublin, 150 kilometres south-east of Warsaw. Intensive investment led to the creation of the most modern distillery in Poland and a leadership position on the vodka market. Poland’s most popular flavoured vodka is produced here: Zoladkowa Gorzka.

Lots of Stock products are produced by traditional recipes. These classical brands appeal to connoisseurs all over the world. In return, work is constantly being done on innovations that correspond to modern tastes and new drinking cultures. Quality standards are constantly upheld in both areas, of course.

The quality of the products was recognised at the World Spirits Award with a gold medal for the Orkisz Spelt Vodka.