The older generation of Dutch people used to try jonge, oude, corenwiijn, fruit and other styles of genever in neighborhood bars called proeflokaals. The word itself means tasting room and in fact, proeflokaals were heavy wooden style, old and fabulous bars, which were dedicated to genever.
The National Genever Museum of Hasselt, produces its own unique and geographically protected styles of genever. The latter is distilled in accordance with a 19th century recipe, in which we had the luck to be introduced by the distiller himself:
JeneverMuseum in Schiedam, is not just another museum. Of course, it is a place that houses historical facts and materials about genever production during the old Dutch days. But at the same time, under the museum’s roof there is plenty of modern equipment which is used nowadays for the production of “the mother of all gins”: The original single malt genever.
Notaris & UTO. These were two words that I had kept in my mind since Philip Duff’s Gin Masterclass at Bar Academy in Athens, a few years ago. The first word refers to the only genever brand allowed to have the seal of Schiedam on bottle’s cap. The second word stands for ‘Uit Tegenweer Opgericht’, wich means ‘founded out of protest’ and refers to the glass company that was founded to produce the bottles that would be filled with this quality Holland spirit.
Having spent three days in Amsterdam for our jenever research, we decided that we should kiss House of Bols and distillery de Ooievaar goodbye, in order to visit the Dutch province of South Holland, the city with the tallest windmills in the world and famous not only for “hosting” a lot of distilleries and malthouses but for its huge jenever production, also: Schiedam. As long as we arrived there, we started knocking around the historical centre and finally we paid a call on distillery De Tweelingh…
There is an old Dutch saying which goes like this: “A sailor’s best working compass is a glass completely filled with genever”. A.van Wees distillery de Ooievaar was built in 1782. The distillery is run by Fenny van Wees and the employees are just a few loyal workers. All products are exclusively made of pure natural raw materials, without the addition of artificial flavours. The drinks are coloured with natural colorants. Jenever (in English it is spelled Genever) is a typical Dutch drink. The word means , quite simply, juniper.
House of Bols – Hunting Spirits