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Kapruner Edelbrände: Hiking with a high-spirited reward

Not far from Kaprun town center, on the Maiskogel mountain, lies the cosy Unteraigen inn. Homemade delicacies and home-distilled schnapps are served here, accompanied by the wonderful panoramic views over the Kaprun Valley and the surrounding mountains. The establishment is run by the Rattens-berger family with charisma and warmth and is a popular place to stop for people on hikes or to take a break from skiing. You can visit the distillery, if you like.

In 1995, Albert Rattensberger had the facility designed and built, and in 2001, he founded the Kaprun-er Edelbrände company. In 2014, Anton ‘Toni’ Rattensberger took over the distillery, which produces fine fruit distillates with love and experience. “In schnapps you will only find what the fruit has to give, sometimes with a little yeast to improve fermentation. Basically, we keep to the motto: good fruit = good fermentation = good schnapps,” says Toni.

Distillation takes place all year round, but the main season is between September and December. When the distillation plan is drawn up, the fruit is delivered. Depending on demand, between 500 and 1,500 litres of schnapps are distilled every year. In total, there are 11 varieties, including apple, multi-fruit schnapps (Obstler), sour cherry, cherry, apricot and Williams pear, all made with fruit sourced from local Styrian farmers. They also produce rowanberry spirits – including Ukrainian field rowan – as well as gentian and even a rich egg liqueur.

At the World Spirits Award, there was silver for gentian, Williams Pear an apricot.

Brennerei Penth: Ideas for schnapps from Saarland

The distillery is located in the heart of Saarland, in the small village of Landsweiler in Lebach, where the Penth family have dedicated themselves to the craft of distillation since 1959. In the family tradition, master distiller and juice maker, Franz Penth, runs the business that he took over from his father in 1981. He gained his master craftsman’s certificate in Berlin, but never had special training: “I was only eight years old and I was already watching my father distilling and helping out!”

The fruit harvest means high season at the Penth Distillery: every day, mirabelle plums, damsons, apples, quinces and other fruit are delivered. Year in, year out, the still is filled up to 1,000 times, whereby about 100 tonnes of fruit yield 15,000 litres of schnapps. In his many years of experience, Franz Penth has also filled the still 1,700 times and, when the harvest was bad, only 100 times. As a speciality of the house, the products are filled into gift bottles and exquisite, decorative bottles – also bespoke ones – which are sourced from glassblowing workshop all over Germany. And so, individual customer requests for custom-made bottles for companies and clubs can be met. Aside from the classic product range of brandies, spirits and liqueurs, over recent years new products such as Agnes’ Green Dry Gin and Pastis Bernard have been developed.

The Master Class Distillery 2019 received gold for Rosehip Brandy, Pear Brandy, and silver for Agnes’ Green Dry Gin, Pastis Bernard, cask-aged Apple Brandy, Organic Riesling Grape Brandy and Mirabelle Plum Brandy.

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’.

Bimmerle: Know-how meets regionality and trend awareness

At the production site in the Black Forest town of Sasbach, which was opened in 2015, this family business sets innovative standards in technology, sustainability and environmental protection. For the last five decades, Bimmerle has strived for the highest quality, with focussed know-how, modern high-tech and the traditional art of distilling. This is the first distillery in Germany where all the heating requirements and power generation are covered by the burning of fruit stones combined with woodchips from the region.

In Germany and on the European market, Bimmerle is a leader in the fruit brandies sector with the Lörch brand. In order to make the ‘playground’ more interesting, the brand identity was modernised in 2024 and will be extended in 2025 by a fruit brandy range matured in wooden casks. Needle Black Forest Gin is among the top 5 most widely sold gins in Germany. The portfolio has been expanded since 2018 with WOOD STORK Spiced Rum and the EVERMANN Black Forest whiskies Theo & Wilhelm introduced in 2022. The Black Forest distillery has enriched the liqueur and aperitif market with as many as five exciting creations under the DON PASQUALE brand.

The World Class Distillery 2025 & Distillery of the Year 2025 – Bronze (Bitters & Liqueurs) received Gold for Don Pasquale Limoncello Liqueur, Zünftler Waldhimbeergeist (wild raspberry spirit), Wood Stork Spiced Rum, Lörch Waldhimbeergeist (wild raspberry spirit), Lörch Vanillekipferl Sahnelikör (vanilla cream liqueur), Needle Gin Green, Don Pasquale Aperitif Bitter Liqueur, Don Pasquale Espresso Martini Liqueur, Don Pasquale Hazelnut Liqueur and Lörch Linzertorte Sahnelikör (Linzer tart cream liqueur). Silver was awarded to Kronenhof Alter Williams Christ Birnenbrand (pear brandy), Lörch Alte Williams Christ Birne (pear brandy), Zinselhof Alter Williams Christ Birnenbrand (pear brandy), Lörch Altes Schwarzwälder Zwetschgenwasser (damson spirit), Needle Blackforest Distilled Dry Gin, Needle Gin Rosé, Don Pasquale Pistachio Cream Liqueur, Lörch Bratapfel Sahnelikör (baked apple cream liqueur), Zünftler Alte Williams Christ Birne (pear brandy), Lörch Williams Spirituose im Holzfass gelagert (pear spirit aged in a wooden cask) and Lörch Marille Spirituose im Holzfass gelagert (apricot spirit aged in a wooden cask), and Bronze to Lörch Obst Spirituose im Holzfass gelagert (fruit spirit aged in a wooden cask).