About us
Our history
The floodplain landscape of the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve stretches 60 kilometers south of Berlin. The lowland with its unique microclimate and the surrounding rye fields offers the best conditions for the production of rye whiskey. This is where the STORK CLUB whiskey distillery, founded in 2004, is located.
THE STORK CLUB STORY
"We were looking for a whiskey cask and came back home with the whole distillery."
Our story in 100 seconds:
The idyllic floodplain landscape of the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve, resembling a river delta, with its unique microclimate, offers the best conditions for the production of rye whiskey.
The STORK CLUB whiskey distillery is located here, in the picturesque village of Schlepzig. Award-winning whisk(e)ys of the highest quality have been distilled and matured there since 2004. In 2010, the whiskey was awarded 94 points internationally for the first time by Jim Murray's Whiskey Bible.
In 2016, the distillery was taken over by Steffen Lohr, Sebastian Brack and Bastian Heuser and transformed into Germany's first rye whiskey distillery. In 2019, STORK CLUB was voted "World's Best Rye Whiskey" at the World Whiskeys Awards.
Bastian, Steffen & Sebastian
Behind STORK CLUB are three people who are not entirely unknown in the spirits industry. On the one hand there is Steffen Lohr. The former bartender (including »Der Raum«, Melbourne) worked for years as a brand ambassador for Bacardi before he set up his own agency »Small Big Brands« with Bastian Heuser and Sebastian Brack. Sebastian Brack, on the other hand, invented the successful Thomas Henry bitter lemonade brand and is a co-founder of Belsazar Vermouth. The third member of the group is Bastian Heuser - also a former bartender and one of the co-founders of the "Bar Convent Berlin", the leading European trade fair for the bar and beverage industry.
Their manifesto after they produce their whiskeys in the Spreewald distillery:
In character, in manner, in style, in all the things, the supreme excellence is SIMPLICITY.
