Where Fjelstrup Kro's travellers once changed horses by the shores of the Lillebælt strait, the family behind Braenderiet Lillebaelt now fires copper kettles instead. In the inn's old stagecoach stable, 175 years of history meets fruit grown a few steps away, on the family's own organic orchard.

The Expert's Description

Braenderiet Lillebaelt Avalon Plum Eau de Vie is a Danish Organic Eau de Vie distilled from Avalon plums grown on the distillery's own orchard and bottled at 41%.

Braenderiet Lillebaelt is Denmark's only family-owned distillery that grows, harvests and distils its own fruit from start to finish. The orchard sits right against the Lillebælt strait, where the mild coastal climate brings a cooler spring and a longer autumn, giving the fruit extra time to build flavour before it's picked. The Avalon plums are large, red-burgundy in colour, with juicy, sweet flesh, and they're distilled on the house's hand-forged Serbian stills, which now stand where the inn's old horse carriages once did.

The idea to distil fruit into eau de vie grew out of the family's repeated trips to the Balkans, home region of Drazen, who married into the family. What started as a shared interest on the road turned into a working distillery, where every bottle still carries the mark of fruit that's been grown, picked and distilled by the same hands.

Tasting Notes

Nose

Ripe, fresh plum with a hint of almond kernel and a light floral lift that echoes the fruit itself.

Palate

Juicy and round, with clear plum character, a touch of acidity through the middle and a clean, unsweetened finish.

Finish

Short to medium, dry and fruity, with no cask influence – pure distillate, exactly as intended.

Specifications

Name: Braenderiet Lillebaelt Avalon Plum Eau de Vie
Distillery: Braenderiet Lillebaelt
Region/Country: Fjelstrup, Haderslev, Denmark
Type: Danish Organic Eau de Vie
ABV: 41%
Size: 50 CL
Serving suggestion: Serve chilled in a small glass as a digestif

Flavour Profile

Fruity · Plum · Fresh · Clean

Did You Know?

The Avalon plum borrows its name from the mythical isle of Avalon in Arthurian legend, home to King Arthur himself – an unexpected pedigree for a plum that ends up as Danish brandy on the shores of the Lillebælt strait.

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In Alsace the cherry trees stand at the edges of the vineyards, half-wild and crooked, carrying fruit that is small, dark and very nearly inedible raw. Picked without stems and brought home the same day, it begins a transformation lasting five weeks. What comes out at the other end is as clear as water.

The expert's description

Kuentz-Bas Eau de Vie Kirsch France 70 cl 45% is a French Eau de Vie distilled from Alsace cherries and bottled at 45%.

The fruit is the guigne variety, a small dark cherry with an unusually small stone. It is traditionally grafted onto wild trees and remains widespread across Alsace. The acidity of the guigne is precisely why it is chosen, because it carries the aroma all the way through fermentation and distillation instead of disappearing on the way.

The cherries are harvested without stems and brought in quickly so the fruit takes no damage. Fermentation runs for four to five weeks and is stirred every single day. The stones are left uncrushed throughout, and that is a deliberate decision. Crushed stones give a heavy, bitter almond note, while whole stones release only the fine trace of almond that enthusiasts look for in a Kirsch.

Kuentz-Bas is based in Ammerschwihr in Alsace and is first and foremost a wine house. Eaux-de-vie belong to the standing range alongside Mirabelle, Framboise, Poire Williams and Vieille Prune among others. What unites them all is that no sugar is added. An Eau de Vie is pure fruit and alcohol, neither sweetened nor coloured, which leaves the quality of the fruit completely exposed in the glass.

Tasting notes

Nose

Cherry, but the fresh kind straight off the tree rather than the preserved kind out of a jar. Behind it sits a fine breath of almond and a floral note reminiscent of cherry blossom.

Palate

Dry from the first drop. The fruit is concentrated without being sweet, and halfway across the stone fruit character steps clearly forward with a light almond bitterness. The alcohol is warm but clean, framing the fruit rather than shouting over it.

Finish

Cool and clean. Cherry stone lingers longest, with a dry dusting of almond and a fresh acidity that clears the mouth.

Specifications

Name: Kuentz-Bas Eau de Vie Kirsch France 70 cl 45%
Producer: Kuentz-Bas
Region/Country: Alsace, France
Type: French Eau de Vie from Cherries
ABV: 45%
Size: 70 CL
Serving suggestion: Chilled to 8-10 degrees in a small tulip glass after a meal

Flavour profile

Cherry · Almond · Dry · Fresh · Stone Fruit

Did you know?

The word Kirsch is short for kirschwasser, which simply means cherry water. The term has been in use in Alsace since the 17th century, making Kirsch one of the oldest named fruit spirits anyone has a record of.

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A schoolteacher's daughter on southern Funen pushed a few apple pips into a flowerpot while she was still a child. The tree that came of it still carries her name. A century and a half later that same variety is steaming through a still in West Jutland.

The expert's description

Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Filippa Eau de Vie 50 cl 42% is a Danish Eau de Vie distilled from the Danish apple variety Filippa, with no cask maturation, and bottled at 42%.

Filippa comes from Hundstrup on southern Funen. As a child, Filippa Johansen sowed pips in a flowerpot, later moved the one seedling that amounted to anything into the family garden, and in 1887 and 1888 the fruit was presented to the Danish Horticultural Society's fruit committee. The pips are thought to have come from a Gravenstein.

The flesh is white and fine-grained, the juice plentiful, and the flavour sweet-tart with an aroma often compared to Gravenstein, only with more acidity behind it. Filippa is picked in late September and does not peak until November and the couple of months that follow. In the kitchen it is a fixture in apple cake, apple compote and apple with pork, precisely because the acidity holds its ground against sugar.

At TONOW Distillery, Filippa is fermented and distilled on its own, with no other varieties in the still. That is the whole premise of the house: single varieties, where the character of one apple gets room to speak. The acidity is what makes Filippa suited to distillation. Where a sweet eating apple turns round and slightly dull in the glass, Filippa gives a tighter, greener profile that keeps the spirit alert.

Tasting notes

Nose

Tart, fresh apple breaks through first, with a clear lift of alcohol just behind it. Then it opens towards something floral and fruit-sweet, and furthest in sits a darker note of prune. Green apple runs through the whole thing.

Palate

Tight and fresh, more acidity than sweetness. The apple is obvious and almost raw, the way biting into a Filippa straight off the tree feels, and the alcohol carries the flavour forward instead of settling over it.

Finish

Green apple stands longest. The acidity releases slowly, the mouth is left clean, and no sticky sweetness remains.

Specifications

Name: Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Filippa Eau de Vie 50 cl 42%
Distillery: TONOW Distillery
Producer: Vesterhavsmost
Region/Country: West Jutland, Denmark
Type: Danish Eau de Vie from the Filippa apple
ABV: 42%
Size: 50 CL
EAN no.: 5714962000736
Serving suggestion: Lightly chilled in a tulip-shaped glass after the meal

Flavour profile

Tart · Green Apple · Fresh · Floral · Dry

Did you know?

Filippa is part of the Frilandsmuseet open-air museum's collection of old Danish fruit varieties, where cultivars long pushed out of commercial growing are kept alive. The variety is therefore both a museum piece and the raw material in this bottle.

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In Normandy they pour young fruit spirit into fresh juice and let time handle the rest. TONOW Distillery brought the idea home to West Jutland, used its own Eau de Vie and juice pressed from Rød Aroma apples, and left the blend on oak until it turned golden.

The expert's description

Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Pommeau No.18 50 cl 20% is a Danish Pommeau made from Eau de Vie and apple juice pressed from the Rød Aroma variety, matured in oak casks and bottled at 20%.

Pommeau is not a fruit brandy but a mistelle. The method dates back to seventeenth-century Normandy, where farmers poured their apple spirit into fresh juice from the same harvest. The alcohol halts fermentation on the spot, so the fruit sugar stays in the liquid, and the drink turns sweet without a grain of sugar being added anywhere.

Here the juice is pressed from Rød Aroma, a variety carrying both acidity and a strong scent, and the spirit comes from the house itself. Maturation in oak is what separates Pommeau from an ordinary sweetened apple drink. The wood draws colour and tannin into the blend and lays in the dried fruit, the cedar and the sherry-like tone that make the drink grown-up rather than merely sweet.

At 20% Pommeau No.18 sits between wine and spirit, and the bottling took silver at the IWSC, the International Wine and Spirit Competition, in London in 2024.

Tasting notes

Nose

Mild, sweet-tart apple first, with a light alcoholic edge. Then come oven-baked apples, vanilla and dried apricot, and behind them dried plums and browned, oxidised apple. A trace of honey rests at the bottom, and right at the end something turns up that recalls a cigar box.

Palate

Sweet apple flavour with plenty of fruit behind it. The wood registers as a dry frame around the sweetness, and halfway through dried apricot and honey arrive. That oxidised, browned apple note is clear, and together with a touch of cedar and sherry it gives a depth you would not expect from apple juice.

Finish

The sweetness releases slowly and leaves dried fruit and a light woody trace. It never turns sticky, because the acidity from Rød Aroma holds it back, and at the very end the apple stands there on its own.

Specifications

Name: Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Pommeau No.18 50 cl 20%
Distillery: TONOW Distillery
Producer: Vesterhavsmost
Region/Country: West Jutland, Denmark
Type: Danish Pommeau made from Eau de Vie and apple juice
ABV: 20%
Size: 50 CL
Cask type: Oak casks
EAN no.: 5714962000798
Serving suggestion: Chilled as an aperitif or with cheese, in a balloon glass

Flavour profile

Sweet · Dried Fruit · Cask-matured · Honeyed · Sherry-toned

Did you know?

In France, Pommeau is a protected designation with its own appellations in Normandy, Brittany and Maine among others. The rules fix both the ratio of juice to spirit and how long the blend must mature in cask before it may be called Pommeau at all.

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There is a scent most Danes can name with their eyes shut: a Gravenstein apple just cut in half. Rød Gråsten is the version whose skin is striped red the whole way round. In this bottle that scent has been pulled out of the fruit and set at 42%.

The expert's description

Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Rød Gråsten Eau de Vie 50 cl 42% is a Danish Eau de Vie distilled from the Rød Gråsten apple, with no cask maturation, and bottled at 42%.

Rød Gråsten is not a new variety but a mutation. Gråsten mutates readily, and in Lübeck a fruit grower spotted a branch on a Gråsten tree bearing fruit of a far deeper colour. Grafting wood from that single branch went on sale in 1854 as Rother Gravensteiner. The fruit is the same as yellow Gråsten, but the skin is covered in red stripes over a yellow ground.

The flesh is crisp and extremely juicy, the flavour sweet-tart, and the aroma is that powerful, spiced Gråsten scent few other varieties can match. How strongly it comes through depends on the soil, on when the fruit is picked and on how long it is allowed to rest. That aroma is precisely why the variety takes so well to distillation.

The apples come from TONOW Distillery's own orchard in West Jutland, where sea air off the North Sea moves across the rows. Fermentation, distillation and bottling all happen on the farm, and Rød Gråsten is run as a single variety with no other apples in the still. The result is a clear spirit in which the variety's spiced side is allowed forward instead of drowning in fruit sweetness.

Tasting notes

Nose

The Gråsten aroma announces itself immediately, spiced and faintly sweet, like a bowl of grated apple that has stood for a quarter of an hour. Beneath it lies something soft and velvety, and the alcohol registers as barely a whisper.

Palate

Mild and sweet on entry, rounder than most apple spirits. The variety's spice arrives halfway through, somewhere between cinnamon and clove without either having been added, and the juiciness of the fruit reads as pure body.

Finish

Soft and sweet, yet never sticky. The spice hangs on longest, and at the very end a dry note of apple skin appears.

Specifications

Name: Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Rød Gråsten Eau de Vie 50 cl 42%
Distillery: TONOW Distillery
Producer: Vesterhavsmost
Region/Country: West Jutland, Denmark
Type: Danish Eau de Vie from the Rød Gråsten apple
ABV: 42%
Size: 50 CL
EAN no.: 5714962002013
Serving suggestion: Lightly chilled in a tulip-shaped glass

Flavour profile

Sweet · Spiced · Juicy · Gentle · Apple-aromatic

Did you know?

The Gråsten apple was voted Denmark's national apple in 2005, though where the variety originally came from has never been settled. Gråsten Castle in southern Jutland is the Danish claim, while other sources point south towards South Tyrol.

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Some people cannot eat apples. The palate itches, the throat tightens, and autumn becomes something watched through a window. Santana was bred for exactly those people, and here the variety has been stripped back to its bare aroma.

The expert's description

Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Santana Eau de Vie 50 cl 42% is a Danish Eau de Vie distilled from the Santana apple, with no cask maturation, and bottled at 42%.

TONOW Distillery sits in West Jutland with the North Sea for a neighbour and shares its yard with the juice press Vesterhavsmost. All the fruit comes from the farm's own orchard, where the trees are planted and pruned so light reaches the whole way down through the canopy, and everything is processed on site.

Santana is a Dutch variety, bred by Bert Meulenbroek and released in 1978 as a cross between Elstar and Priscilla. It was developed with a lower level of the protein Mal d1, the compound behind most apple allergy reactions, and roughly three in four sufferers can handle the fruit. The flavour sits close to Elstar: firm, sweet-tart, with a trace of lychee and rose on the sun-facing cheek.

An Eau de Vie is pure fruit spirit. The apples are fermented and distilled, and after that nothing happens. No cask, no sugar, no colouring. It is an honest way to read an apple variety, because there is nowhere to hide. Santana's floral side steps forward, and its sweetness turns into warmth rather than sugar.

TONOW Distillery was named Danish Distillery of the Year in 2022, and this bottling has taken silver at both the Berlin Spirits Competition in 2022 and the World Spirits Award in Austria in 2023.

Tasting notes

Nose

Gentle and welcoming rather than forceful. Ripe red apple leads, then apple peel and a trace of freshly pressed juice. The variety's floral scent sits underneath it all and grows clearer once the glass has stood for a couple of minutes.

Palate

Ripe apple arrives at once, carried by an alcohol warmth that never stings. The sweetness is fruit sweetness rather than sugar, and halfway through there is a light richness reminiscent of the skin on an apple just cut open.

Finish

Warm and soft. The sweetness lingers a while, and right at the end a dry, almost floral note appears and closes things off neatly.

Specifications

Name: Tonow Vesterhavsmost Danish Santana Eau de Vie 50 cl 42%
Distillery: TONOW Distillery
Producer: Vesterhavsmost
Region/Country: West Jutland, Denmark
Type: Danish Eau de Vie from the Santana apple
ABV: 42%
Size: 50 CL
EAN no.: 5714962000743
Serving suggestion: Well chilled in a tulip-shaped glass

Flavour profile

Apple-fresh · Floral · Sweet-fruited · Gentle · Warming

Did you know?

Nothing is thrown out after pressing. The leftover apple pulp is dried and ends up in bread and muesli, and 99 percent of the orchard's harvest goes to juice. The spirit therefore comes from a farm whose first business is apple juice.

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