Drinking Culture

Hasseltse Jenever is traditionally drunk ice-cold, straight from the freezer, served in a small, tulip-shaped glass filled right to the brim. The first sip is taken without using your hands, bending forward at the waist right down to the edge of the table so as not to spill a drop. This isn't a quirky custom but widely practiced etiquette across Flanders and the Netherlands.

Anyone who orders a pils alongside is drinking a Kopstoot, literally a 'head-butt': the cool beer follows right after the sharp jenever. This combination is standard in pubs throughout the region. Hasselt never had its own gin palaces in the London sense, but it did have distillery pubs right next to the factories, where workers sometimes drank away their wages before the workday even ended. This closeness between pub and factory shaped everyday life for many Hasselt families across generations.

The high point of the year is the Jeneverfeesten, held every year on the third weekend of October since 1991. At four in the afternoon, the festival's signature moment begins: real jenever flows for an hour from the Borrelmanneke fountain, free for anyone with their own glass. The festivities also include parades, a waiters' race through the city center, and ceremonial inductions of new members into the Confrérie van de Hasseltse Jenever.

This brotherhood keeps the ritual alive throughout the year, with its own traditional costumes and titles that recall the old distilling families. For the people of Hasselt, jenever is thus less a drink for toasting than a piece of civic identity, celebrated loudly once a year.