Whisky Issues European Distilling
Issue 161 | Whisky Magazine 21Italians make their own whisky at PUNI.
The distillery is located in Glorenza,
Southern Tyrol and immediately
catches the eye with its terracotta
colour and cube-like building.The Netherlands
The Netherlands has two commercial
distilleries. The first one is beer brewer
Us Heit (Frisian for “our father”),
located in the old town of Bolsward
in the north. Since 2004 a single malt
called Frysk Hynder (the Frisian
thoroughbred) has been made here.
The next one is Zuidam Distillers
in Baarle-Nassau, a Dutch enclavesurrounded by Belgium, in the south
of the Netherlands. Zuidam started in
the 1970s as a jenever distiller and
soon branched out in the domains
of fruit liqueurs and vodka. In 1999,
the company began distilling whisky
and currently produces single malts
and rye whisky under the brand
name Millstone. Two handfuls of
micro distillers are spread over the
country. Without disqualifying others
the following are worth a mention:
Kalkwijck Distillers, notable for its
female owner/master distiller in
Western Europe, Lisanne Benus. She
uses barley, corn, rye and wheat from
their own estate to make a variety of
whisky styles and other distillates.
Then there are Stokerij Sculte,
Kampen Distillers and IJsvogel.
The Dutch journalist Wieger
Favier even wrote a book about
the distilleries in the Lowlands,
incorporating the Belgians too and
came to a stunning
30-odd companies that distil
whisky. The book is appropriately
called Whisky van de Lage Landen018-023-Europe-WM161.indd 21 25/06/2019 12: