The Japanese and the Indian distillers have long been whisky manufacturers and all have their own single-malt brands. And even my favourite brand of Scotch single-malt whisky “Isle of Jura” is now owned by Vijay Mallya’s United Breweries Group.
But now German distillers are shifting their sights from schnapps to whisky.
Der Spiegel:
The Germans, it seems, are not content with just making world-famous beer and schnapps. Now they are taking on the Scots at their own game, with a growing number of distillers producing single malt whisky. And the results, say connoisseurs, are impressive.
With its exposed brick walls and floor-to-ceiling windows, the room could pass for the foyer of a boutique hotel — were it not for the gleaming copper still that occupies pride of place along one wall. It is here that master distiller Cornelia Bohn is preparing another batch of malt whisky. Her distillery is not located in the remote Highlands of Scotland, however, but in the tiny village of Schönermark in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, about an hour’s drive from Berlin.
Bohn is one of a growing number of Germans who are applying their considerable brewing and schnapps-making skills to the ancient Scottish art of single malt whisky. And they don’t lack confidence when it comes to taking on the Scots at their own game.
“My whisky will reflect the open spaces and rolling hills of my countryside,” says Bohn, who owns the Preussische Whisky distillery in Schönermark. “It will be a polarizing whisky, and it won’t be everyone’s darling.”
Bohn, who is one of very few female whisky distillers in the world, began studying the art of whisky making in 2006. She got serious about her passion when she bought and renovated a decrepit 160-year old stable in her village and began making whisky. Her first single malt will hit the market at the end of 2012, after the necessary three-year maturation period.
The label on her bottle, whose name translates as “Prussian Whisky,” shows a rearing black horse wearing a Prussian military helmet. The message is clear: This is a proud German whisky that is not trying to emulate its Scottish ancestors.
Bohn belongs to a group of around 40 malt-whisky makers in Germany, the most prominent of which are the Slyrs distillery in Bavaria and the Spreewald Brewery in Brandenburg. The Sloupisti single malt from the Spreewald Brewery was awarded the equivalent of an Oscar by the high priest of whisky, critic Jim Murray. He included it in the “superstar whiskies that give us all a reason to live” section of the 2010 edition of his “Whisky Bible.”
Plus, German malts are not cheap. The Sloupisti single malt retails at €69 euros ($95) for a 0.7 liter (24 ounce) bottle — around €30 more than an average Scotch. The German whiskies’ high prices reflect not only the time and effort required to produce the spirit, but the fact that small production quantities do not allow for economies of scale. Only about 100,000 bottles of malt were produced in Germany in 2010 — a drop in the ocean compared to the industrial quantities produced in Scotland, where a single distillery can make millions of liters of spirit each year.
Although single malt whisky can be made anywhere in the world, only the beverage made in Scotland may be called Scotch. Nevertheless, malts from other countries are becoming increasingly popular. Japan is currently one of the biggest global whisky producers, and critic Jim Murray chose the Amrut Fusion malt from India as the third best whisky in the world in his 2010 “Whisky Bible.”
Prussian whisky distillery. Cornelia Bohn at the whisky distillery in Schönermark. Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa
http://www.pnn.de/havel-spree/219102/
From the pharmacy to the distillery
Cornelia Bohn has a weakness for whisky. Now she wants to bring her own brand on the market. In an old horse stable in the 450-strong village Schönermark (Uckermark) the pharmaceutical engineer has a few days ago opened the “Prussian whisky distillery”
Torsten Roman Brewery of the Spreewald in Brandenburg shows off his Sloupisti single malt whisky which has been praised for its big personality.: photo Torsten Römer
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