Stork Club Straight Rye

Old gold in colour. The bouquet shows sweet, almost sticky. Vanilla, candy floss and orange marmalade. Werther’s originals and bitter chocolate. High notes of rye grass and a little germoline. The palate is bold, unexpectedly unctuous and oily. Alcohol is obvious but quite well-integrated with the flavours. Milk chocolate, pine and liquorice. A good whack of vanilla, but there’s some peachy stone fruit too. Bit of earthiness on the finish, plus some habañero spice.

With the newly launched “Stork Club” whisky range, consisting of a straight rye whisky, a single malt whisky and single-cask fillings, the SpreeWood Distillers have focus on selective cask management and the unusual microclimate of the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve. This micro-climate with its seasonal temperature differences, unusually pronounced for Central Europe, ensures intensive interaction of the distillate with the casks and leaves a unique character in the whisky.The grain for the distillate is supplied by Germany’s breadbasket, right on the distillery’s doorstep: Brandenburg. Even American rye whisky producers trust in the quality of the rye cultivated here. The whiskies currently mature in bourbon and sherry casks, as well as in white wine casks of selected German wine-growers. In parallel with this, in cooperation with international experts, we are working on a type of cask management that is revolutionary for Germany. All whiskies are filled without the addition of colourings and flavourings and without using cold filtration. Our whiskies are developed in three different casks, and married with each other before filling, in order to evolve complexity, character and the typical STORK CLUB flavour. For this, we use two casks specially produced for us made of American oak, and a cask made of German oak, also individually crafted for us. Each of the three casks was differently heat-treated (“toasted”) in order to convey very specific characteristics. In order to enrich our whiskies with yet another layer of flavour, we also use seasoning casks. These casks have already held other spirits or wines and are also processed in our whiskies to a very small extent. Incidentally, “Stork Club” is the emblem of the region, dedicated to the stork. In spring, many stork couples find a breeding place around the distillery: the Club of Storks was born!