Water & Climate

Schiedam lies where the small river Schie flows into the Nieuwe Maas, right in the heart of the Rhine-Meuse delta in the southwestern Netherlands. The city itself sits well below sea level. Dikes and pumps have protected it without interruption ever since.

This flat, open land is exactly why the wind blows here so steadily. It sweeps in almost unhindered from the sea across the polders, strong enough to reliably turn the sails of Schiedam's windmills even in mild weather. That's why the mills had to be built unusually tall, otherwise the surrounding houses would have blocked their wind.

The climate stays mild and damp throughout the year. Rain falls evenly instead of clustering into a few months as it does elsewhere. Winters are rarely harsh, and summers stay pleasantly cool. In autumn, fog often lingers for days over the canals, a fitting image for a city that lives off the water.

Water first shaped the city as a transport route for grain and finished genever. But it's just as essential to the distilling process itself. Every distillery needs large amounts of clean water to bring the finished distillate down to drinking strength before bottling.

Without the river, enough grain could never have been delivered over the centuries. Without the steady wind, the mills would have stood idle for long stretches. The delta shaped this distilling city just as much as its inhabitants shaped it themselves, generation after generation.