How Bols Genever is made

How Bols Genever is made image 1

How Bols Genever is made

Bols Genevers, like all genevers/jenevers, are a blend of 'moutwijn' (malt-wine), a distillate of a secret mix of botanicals including juniper, and neutral grain spirit. In the 19th century, genevers were one of the four key ingredients in classic cocktails, such as the Tom Collins and the Holland House.

Malt wine is distilled from equal parts fermented wheat, rye, and corn, with a small amount of malted barley added to provide enzymes that aid the conversion of starch to fermentable sugars. The temperatures used in the mashing process where the 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 flavour. The fermented liquid (wash) is first distilled using a stripping column before being twice distilled in a copper pot still. After the final distillation, the malt-wine leaves the pot still at around 47% alv./vol.. This relatively low distillation strength produces a highly flavoured spirit, retaining the malty flavours of the grains from which it is distilled. It is this malt-wine that gives Bols Genever its distinct flavour.

The second component is a botanical distillate made by redistilling grain-neutral alcohol with a recipe of botanical flavourings, including coriander, caraway and aniseed.

In some cases, like for Bols Corenwyn, juniper is distilled separately from the other botanicals in malt wine instead of neutral grain spirit – making a third ingredient.

The final ingredient is a secret ingredient that Lucas Bols's previous Master Distiller, Piet van Leijenhorst, rediscovered from ancient Bols recipes. This gives Bols Genever a distinctive aftertaste.

If an aged genever is being made, then the malt wine and botanical distillate blend will be aged in oak casks, usually a combination of new and used French Limousin oak and, only for the Corenwyn aged six years, also American oak.

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