When it comes to New World whisky, weird and wacky come with the territory, so perhaps nothing should come as a great surprise.Nevertheless, ask Swiss distillers Pascal Mitter and Rinaldo Willy how they make a living outside whisky and their answers are well and truly off piste. “I make diamonds out of dead bodies,” says Willy, who speaks Romanisch, a sort of Latin and French language spoken by a few thousand local folk in this corner of the Swiss Alps.

“Or at least I make diamonds from the 16% of carbon left after cremation. It’s quite common to wear your deceased loved one as jewellery rather than just scatter their ashes.” Wow. And Pascal Mitter? “See that building there?” he says, as he drives his classic Jaguar through a typically pretty Alpine valley, and he points to a nondescript grey building with some barbed wire on it. “They make nearly all of Europe’s euro notes in there.”

Notwithstanding the irony of Switzerland producing euro notes, how does he know? “I am in IT security,” he says, “and that is my main client. And now that I have told you, I will have to kill you.” He is smiling. Mitter and Willy may have day jobs, but when it comes to making whisky they are not playing games. They have invested substantially in their whisky company, which is called Orma, are distilling at Telser distillery in nearby Liechtenstein, and have several caves high up in the Alps where they’re experimenting with maturation, making these the highest whisky ‘warehouses’ in the world.

And they’re thinking big. They are putting their whisky into an expensive and stylish bottle. Their logo is a goat, a symbol of the region, with long horns and tail so that it looks like a number eight. Read the Orma logo upside down and the three lines that make the M and the inverted V that acts as A, together look like the Roman VIII – eight. The strength of the whisky is 44% – which adds up to…you guessed it. So why? “We are looking ahead to exporting our whisky,” says Mitter. “Eight is a lucky number in Asia.”

Orma isn’t the only whisky producer in Europe that is turning production on its head. There are only two ways of making malt whisky. Like the Scots do, in which case you’d better be really good at it, because Scotland is. Or by doing something radically different.

There are strict rules about making malt whisky in Europe. You can only use malted grain, yeast and water, for instance, and you must mature it in wooden casks for at least three years. 

But within those confines there is plenty of room for manoeuvre, and Europe’s new wave of distillers are proving remarkably adept when it comes to taking whisky production into new and exciting areas.

While Orma is high on the hills with a lonely goatherd, others are making whisky in remote sawmills, in underground caves, in old stables and in disused armouries on offshore islands. 

It’s not just the locations that set the Europeans apart. It’s normally assumed that malt refers to malted barley, because that is what is used, and how it is defined, in Scotland. But other countries question that and are malting oats, wheat, spelt, triticale, rye, and even quinoa – all grains and permissible in whisky production.

They are experimenting with different woods to mature their spirit, and they are using casks which have contained locally-produced wines and spirits. Indeed, the regionality of the whisky-making process is becoming a key factor. Peat varies massively from country to country so drying barley over different peats will impart different flavours. Local smoking methods, such as using juniper twigs in Sweden and, er, sheep dung in Iceland, also influence taste.

The results of all these adjustments are a range of whiskies from across Europe that often don’t taste like Scottish single malt whiskies, and don’t want to. Some of them – Mackmyra in Sweden, Belgian Owl in Belgium, Penderyn in Wales, Zuidam in The Netherlands, St George’s in England – are now not only established in international markets, but are picking up awards and demanding to be taken seriously at the very highest level.

But there are more, many more, which are either just making their first tentative steps on to the world stage, bottling for the first time and servicing localised markets, or still maturing their spirit.

And there are clear centres of influence for the European whisky market. There are established producers in France, Belgium and The Netherlands, developing whisky from a tradition of beer or genever; there are the intensely scientific producers from northern Europe and particularly Sweden, such as Spirit of Sven and Box; and there are the plethora of distilleries scattered across Germany, Switzerland, northern Italy, Liechtenstein and Austria, many of them with roots in fruit liqueur, beer and even wine production.

Diverse production

As we have seen, the whiskies they are producing are diverse and often have little in common with each other taste-wise. But what they all have – and what sets them apart from many American craft distillers – is quality.

“We have not really seen the extremely poor quality in Europe yet, and hopefully we won’t,” says Henrik Molina, owner of, and master blender at, Spirit of Hven in Sweden. 

“I think one of the reasons is the three-year rule. This keeps some of the less serious distillers out. Another reason is that the legislation generally is a bit stricter in Europe, especially with regards to health and safety. This makes the general investment a bit larger, and also sorts out some of the less serious ones. The downside to this is that we rarely see the really weird and funny stuff.”

Patrick Zuidam, managing director of Zuidam of The Netherlands, which markets a range of whisky under the name Millstone, argues that European distilleries are family owned, unlike those in America.

“I like my American colleagues a lot and some of them have produced astonishing spirits,” he says. “ But their business models with outside investors are radically different from our European business financing, often bringing more pressure on fast return on investments. 

“Most European producers, like us, are family businesses that are less interested in short-term return on investments and more in building long-term quality image. Quality is key, the rest will follow,” says Zuidam.

The standard of European whisky has progressed rapidly. In the past five years, for instance, the Alpine region in particular has made giant steps forward. 

The Germanic countries have a long history of distilling of course, stretching back centuries. But when it came to making whisky, there were teething problems. Making whisky is entirely different to making fruit liqueurs – a lesson the distillers learned fast.

Remarkable changes

Arthur Nãgele is an Austrian trainer and consultant who works alongside distilleries across the Alpine region, and he heads up the European Craft Distillers’ Alliance. He says the changes have been remarkable.

“Our distillers learned from their mistakes,” he says. “In the early days of Alpine whisky, maturation and cask management were weak points. Fruit distillers are mostly used to using new oak for a very short time. That’s totally different to the way whisky is made. Generally speaking, Alpine whisky is totally different to scotch.

“Fruit distillers are the cleanest in the world and have a different approach to the Scots. They use other grains, have different distillation methods and cleaner cut points, which make the product closer to Irish or Canadian whisk(e)y. Due to the extremely clean cuts, Alpine whiskies do not need such a long maturation in wood as scotch.”

Further north the issue of maturation time is one of the areas that Swedish distillers are looking at closely. Box is using Hungarian and eastern European oak, for instance, which imparts taste and colour to the spirit at a much higher rate than French, Spanish or American oak.

And it’s an area that Hven’s Molina is interested in, though he thinks that European whisky should not push the boundaries too far.

“I always think there is room for something new and for thinking outside the box (no pun intended),” he says. “However, there are creative people who tend to think so far outside the box they forget where they actually put the box in the first place. It is fun to play with new ideas, but the question is how far can you twist a whisky before the consumer does not recognise it any more?”

What all European distillers agree on is that the future is very bright for whisky from non-traditional European countries. Part of the reason is the way that Scotland is arguably shooting itself in the foot with a double whammy of a series of price hikes and the move to whiskies without an age statement. “Every time the Scots talk about age not mattering, my job gets that little bit easier,” commented one English distiller recently.

David Roussier of Distillerie Warenghem agrees, and says there is a seismic shift in attitudes towards new world whiskies.

“We appeal mainly to a standard whisky drinker but one who is open to new things,” he says. “It is really getting easier now. People understand that good whisky is not dependent on the location of the distillery. For people who love whisky, the origin is becoming less important as long as the quality is there. 

“The fact that Scottish producers are both increasing prices and removing age statements can be considered as a help for us because our whiskies become less expensive and it means the consumer focuses less on the age.”

In The Netherlands Patrick Zuidam agrees. “The increases in price of high-quality scotch and Japanese whisky in recent years is relevant because it has provided us with opportunities to compete more easily. All of a sudden we are regarded as having a great quality-to-price ratio, and therefore are seen as value for money.”

All European distillers agree that whiskies from non-traditional regions will go from strength to strength.

“People have tended to be more open-minded since there’s been more media focus on world whisky and Asian whisky,” says Nãgele. “Ten years ago no scotch drinker would have tried an Alpine whisky. That has changed. And there is also an ongoing trend to drink more local produce, and this is definitely an opportunity for our distillers. Speaking for Alpine whisky, I’d say we’re going from niche market to mainstream one.”

It’s the same story right across Europe. From the highest mountain to the deepest mines, exciting new European whisky is on its way. We live in exciting times.