How Bols Corenwyn is made

The three separately made ingredients and the production process are as follows:

1. Malt wine is made from equal parts wheat, rye and corn, with a small amount of malted barley added to provide enzymes to aid the conversion of starch to fermentable sugars. The temperatures used in the mashing process where those sugars are converted and the steps at which those temperatures are dropped, from 90˚C to 30˚C, along with the fermentation process and yeast, are crucial to malt wine's final flavour profile. The fermented liquid (wash) is first distilled using a stripping column before being twice distilled in a copper pot still. After this triple distillation, the 47% abv distillate produced is then aged in new and used Limousin oak casks for between two and ten years to produce the various aged Bols Corenwyn variants, which are each unique blends created by the Lucas Bols Master Distiller and his blending team.

2. To make the juniper distillate for Corenwyn, carefully selected juniper berries are steeped in malt wine and then distilled in a copper pot still.

3. A botanical distillate is made in a similar process to the juniper distillate. A botanical recipe specific to Bols Corenwyn, including aniseed, root ginger, hops, angelica and liquorice, is steeped in neutral grain alcohol and then distilled in a copper pot still.

4. The malt wine, juniper distillate and botanical distillate are blended and aged in a combination of new and used French Limousin oak casks. Bols Corenwyn is then bottled into the traditional clay bottle.

Each hand-made clay bottle has the Bols name stamped into the wet clay. Their first use dates back to the 16th century, when clay jars from the German Westerwald region held mineral water and were sold to the rich in Amsterdam. The empty clay water jars were then re-used to hold genever.