What did you do before launching Niederrheiner Gin? For both of us building and managing our own Gin brand is currently still a side business that we run next to our regular corporate jobs. Frank works in Sales, myself (Jochen) in Consulting. We both very much value and enjoy the entrepreneurial freedom in our Gin business and the fact that we learn something new every day. What inspired you to create Niederrheiner Gin? The German word “Schnapsidee” (literally translates to “booze idea”) refers to an idea you get after having had too much booze and implies that your idea will very likely not end well... Well, being big Gin fans, we had organised a Gin & Tonic tasting with some of our friends on a balmy summer evening. After having tasted several different G&Ts, Frank spontaneously asked me: “wouldn’t it be great if we created our own Gin?”. I didn't know if he was serious, but simply said: “Why not, let's do it!” and that's how it all got started. So, what may have started as a “Schnapsidee” has eventually turned out to actually be an excellent idea.
What is the meaning and story behind your brand name? The Lower Rhine region, also known as “Niederrhein” in German, is located in western Germany along the Rhine River near the city of Duesseldorf and bordering the Netherlands. It's a flat, fertile area with a strong agricultural tradition. The region has a distinct cultural identity, with its own dialect, traditions, and festivals. The name picks up on the trend towards regional products that are produced locally with great attention to detail. It is a homage to our home, the Lower Rhine region. We take pride in the fact that each bottle of Niederrheiner Gin is filled, labelled and sealed by hand. The batch number, bottling date and bottle number are handwritten by us, making each bottle of Niederrheiner Gin a unique gem. Can you tell us more about the distillery you work with? We had started to experiment with the distillation of botanicals and combining tastes in our private homes already back in 2018, but only seriously considered creating our own gin brand when we met our production partner, Mühle4, and realised that there was a possibility to do so without having to take on the financial risk involved in building our own distillery; simply, because there already was a very good one with a very experienced distiller right around the corner. Mühle4 distillery ('mühle' meaning 'mill' in English) was founded in 2017 and is located in the former flour house of a windmill. The distillery also produces numerous fruit and grain brandies, liqueurs and herbal bitters under its own brand.
Can you tell us more about your distillation process and botanicals? We have spent a long time creating our version of the 'perfect' Gin and finally came up with a combination of fourteen botanicals such as kaffir lime leaves, barberry, orange blossom, lemongrass, cinnamon, rosemary and mint, which give Niederrheiner Gin a unique character that – we feel - should not be missing in any well-equipped bar. The idea behind our Niederrheiner Gin – Rooibos Infusion was to create something completely unique by adding a Rooibos Orange tea infusion to our gin. Plus, we simply love the creative process of developing a new product, all the way from the first idea for a recipe, producing, selling and ultimately putting a smile on people’s face when they enjoy our products. What is your ambition for your Niederrheiner Gin in the years to come? We want to grow our footprint in Germany and establish partnerships that enable us to ship outside Germany to reach Gin lovers also outside our home country. On top of that we will keep developing and launching new products we feel there is an audience for.
What are your favourite ways to drink your gins?
First of all, we love to enjoy our Gin as a classic Gin & Tonic, simply because we are fascinated by the large variety of unique tastes you can create when combining a certain Gin with different types of Tonic Water. On our journey we have tasted well over 50 different Tonic Waters from around the world. In our web-shop we have put together a selection of some outstanding tonics, with flavours like marula, honeybush, chinotto, yuzu and bergamot, which all pair particularly well with our gin. Besides the classical G&T we like the special twist our Gins add to classic and modern cocktails like Negroni, French 74, Last Word, Royal Aviation to name a few. Last but not least, like any high-quality spirit, our Gins also taste great when simply enjoyed neat. Desert Island Gins: Which 3 gins would you take with you and why? There are a lot of great Gins out there and our private bars contain a lot of different ones. But if we had to choose three to take along to a desert island (except for our own Gins), they would be:
What's next for you and Niederrheiner Gin - any exciting plans? For one, we have recently started to produce our own “Eierlikör” (Egg liquor), which combines the citric notes of our Gin with the flavours of tonka beans and bourbon vanilla, creating our unique version of a rather traditional drink. On top of that we have some other ideas for new products in the pipeline e.g. creating our own Italian bitter and a Sweet Vermouth to combine both with our own Gin to create a pre-batched Negroni. You Might Also Like...
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