Region & History

On February 19, 1983, Robert Fleischmann mashed a batch in his small distillery in Neuses near Eggolsheim, out of curiosity rather than any grand plan. The cask disappeared into the cellar, almost forgotten, until he opened it again two years later. What he tasted was more than just drinkable: Germany's first single malt whisky was ready, long before anyone here thought of an actual whisky region.

At the time, Bavaria had long been distilling beer and gentian schnapps, but whisky had no law of its own. For nearly a hundred years, grain spirits and other liquors fell under the federal spirit monopoly, which strictly regulated volumes and duties. It wasn't until the end of 2017 that this monopoly was abolished, with tax rules moving into the new Alcohol Tax Act. Since then, whisky itself has fallen under a shared EU regulation, just like everywhere else in the bloc, one that first defines what may even be called whisky.

The second story begins with a bet. In 1994, master brewer Florian Stetter traveled to Scotland with colleagues and recognized his own homeland in it, with similar mountains and equally clear water. His family had been distilling gentian schnapps in Hausham am Schliersee since 1928, under the name Lantenhammer. In 1999, the first Slyrs whisky ran through the still there; by 2002 the first 1,600 bottles sold out within days, and in 2007 the brand got its own home with a new distillery in Neuhaus am Schliersee.

Rüdenau in the Spessart joined later. There, Andreas Thümmler founded the St. Kilian distillery in 2012, in the halls of a former textile dye works at the edge of town. Production began in March 2016, and in 2019 the first in-house three-year-old release went on sale, accompanied by a range of cask types unlike anything seen before in Bavaria.

Today, two paths run side by side in Bavaria: the small cellar distillery that has simply carried on for over forty years, and the facility designed for whisky from the very start. Both draw on the same Bavarian brewing and distilling tradition, just with a different goal in the kettle.