Our manufacture
FROM GRAIN TO GLASS
Have you ever wondered how rye actually becomes STORK CLUB Rye Whiskey?
Since 2004, award-winning whiskeys of the highest quality have been distilled and matured in the STORK CLUB distillery 60km south of Berlin. In 2010, the whiskey was awarded 94 points internationally by Jim Murray's Whiskey Bible for the first time. In 2019, STORK CLUB Rye Whiskey received the World's Best Rye Whiskey award at the World Whiskeys Awards. We make our whiskey in a traditional and artisan way. And yet we love to break with conventions. It's not for nothing that we are Germany's first pure rye whiskey distillery!e!
The Rye
The basis of our whiskey is German rye from the surrounding fields. We obtain this rye from agricultural cooperatives and cooperatives of regional farmers. That makes sense, because Brandenburg is Europe's largest growing region for rye and is known worldwide for its quality. Even well-known American Rye Whiskey producers buy their rye here in Brandenburg!
Mashing & Fermenting
In our hammer mill, we grind our grain ourselves according to our specifications. A fine rye flour is produced, which we now boil down with plenty of water for several hours. In this process, we convert the starch in the flour into simple sugars so that they can be digested by the yeasts in the fermentation process. The result is a viscous, dark and very sweet grain porridge: the mash. This mash is now pumped into our fermentation tanks, where it is mixed with selected yeast strains. The yeasts now eat the sugar in the mash and excrete CO2 and alcohol in the process. The fermentation process takes about 5 days, after which the sweet grain porridge has turned into a sour grain porridge with about 9% alcohol. We affectionately call it "Distillers Beer". This Distillers Beer is now being distilled
Distill
The rye mash is pumped into our two copper hybrid stills and gently distilled there. The first distillation takes place in a pot still, the second distillation process in a so-called aromator over 5 copper bubble trays. Our New Make - the raw distillate - has approx. 75% vol. after distillation. We can distil approx. 90-100L New Make from 1,000L mash, after two distillation processes we can fill a 200L whiskey barrel. Incidentally, we work with two self-developed Mash Bills (cereal recipes):):
100% raw rye fruit Bold & Spicy: this distillate impresses with its peppery fruitiness and results in a robust and spicy whiskey.ey.
100% rye malt Sweet & Mellow: this distillate impresses with its malty sweetness and chocolate notes and results in a smooth and sweet whiskey.ey.
maturing process
Up to 60-80% of the aromas contained in the whiskey are released from the casks, which serve as temporary storage space for the whiskey. We have the highest demands on our cask management, because that is at least as elementary as the mash bill of our whiskeys and the yeasts we use.
Our whiskeys are matured in different casks for at least 3 years and before bottling married together to develop complexity, character and the typical STORK CLUB taste. For this purpose, we primarily use barrels made of American or German Napoleon oak that are individually built for us. The casks are heat treated (“toasted”) in different ways in order to transfer very specific taste characteristics to the whiskey. But “preallocated” barrels are also used. Barrels that used to contain e.g. wine, sherry or other spirits.
BOTTLING and LABELING
After aging, the whiskey casks are emptied and blended together in specific compositions. After a rest period, it is filtered and reduced to drinking strength by adding filtered, neutralized water. The bottling and labeling as the last step takes place - mostly still by hand - also in our distillery.
