Region & History

Anyone walking along the Lange Haven in Schiedam in the morning first smells the water of the canal, then something sweetish, almost like warm bread. It's the smell of malt. The city lies on the Nieuwe Maas, close to Rotterdam, and it was precisely this river that for centuries brought the grain from which Genever was distilled here.

Nolet Distillery is one of the oldest witnesses to this era. Joannes Nolet founded it in 1691, and his descendants run the business to this day, now in the eleventh generation. The vodka Ketel One also comes from the same distillery, named after the old, coal-fired copper still "Distilleerketel #1" that still stands there.

Not far away lies De Kuyper. Petrus De Kuyper originally made barrels for transporting beer and spirits, founding the business in 1695. His son Jan De Kuyper bought a distillery in Schiedam in 1752 and began producing Genever there. The family continues to run the company to this day.

To supply the distilleries with flour, around twenty so-called Brandersmolens, windmills that ground malted grain into grist, once stood in the city. Six of them still remain. De Noord, built in 1803, measures 33.3 meters and is considered the tallest classic windmill in the world; De Vrijheid dates from 1785.

This density of mills and distilleries earned Schiedam the nickname "Jeneverstad," Genever City. Anyone visiting the Nationaal Jenevermuseum on the Lange Haven today stands in a pakhuis from 1794, where the distillery of P. Melchers once operated. Moutwijn is still distilled there using traditional methods today.

In 2006, a new mill was added: De Nolet, more than 43 meters tall, built by the Nolet distillery right next to its stills. Schiedam thus remains a city where history and ongoing operations stand side by side in the tightest of spaces, from the canal to the harbor on the Maas.