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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’.

Privatdestillerie Hermann Pfanner – The art of distilling since 1856

A love of fruit and the passion for producing high-quality products from the treasures of nature is the motto of this traditional family business. The company was founded by Max Hermann Pfanner, who purchased the “Landgasthaus zum Hirschen” guesthouse in Lauterach in 1856. In addition to a small beer brewery, brandies and liqueurs have been produced here for the catering industry from the outset. Williams pear brandy was launched onto the market for the first time in the early 1950s – a speciality of the day which remains a flagship product of the company even today, accounting for 80% of the overall production. Pfanner is Austria’s largest producer of genuine Williams pear brandy.

The goal of Walter Pfanner is to produce elegant and pure brandies, a distinct intensity and refined balance with a character typical of the fruit in question. The ripe fruits are selected with care and some 500,000 kilograms are refined each year using a professional approach and the latest production techniques. The name “Pfanner – der Edle” (Pfanner – the exquisite) is no coincidence.

The range of varieties on offer – Williams pear, Williams pear with honey, Subirer pear, raspberry, apricot, fruit brandy, plum, cherry, gentian and rowanberry – are presented in a confident modern design, defined by their long-standing tradition. The first Vorarlberg single malt whisky was distilled in 2005 and presented in 2009 following three years of storage in wooden barrels. This addition to the product variety was a great success. New to the range is an elegant cigar brandy creation made from Golden Delicious apples and stored in Limousin oak barrels.

Pfanner ranked 16th among the fruit brandies at the World-Spirits Award as a “Master-Class Distillery”, winning two golds and three silvers. The innovative whisky was also awarded gold by the discerning jury.

NEST Gin: A little sip of South Tyrol

Two young South Tyroleans – Peter Paul Schweitzer, a drinks retailer from Latsch, and the fine brandy sommelier Matthias Gamper, a hotelier in the Schnals Valley and a gin expert – wanted to revive old recipes to meet contemporary tastes. “We wanted to create a product that is modern and that suits us.” Their knowledge, their experience and their passion for gin provided the best conditions for their first spirits project. They needed barely a year for product development, naming and packaging. They achieved a gin that is both modern and alpine. Nest Gin – the name implies a comfortable home, like a nest.

It was thought out and distilled at the heart of the Alps, developed from paper to the bottle in cooperation with the distilling master Helmut Oberhofer from the Roner Distillery. The essential basis: crystal clear alpine water from South Tyrol and the finest grain. The main protagonist in the complex play of aromas: the finest alpine herbs with a hint of orange. The botanicals involved apart from juniper are coriander, angelica root, masterwort, gentian, yarrow, musk blossom, thyme and marigold. And apart from that nothing: no oils, no essences, no tricks. And what does the gin itself say about it? “They tried to say no, but I was 42% stronger. I was created, a little sip of happiness, made for gintlemen and gintlewomen in the finest nightclub, for ginsters in the trendiest town and for true country folk in the wildest nature.”

At the World Spirits Award, Nest Gin Alpine London Dry received gold.