The Lower Franconian whisky distillery St Kilian, located in the tranquil village of Rüdenau, near the medieval town of Miltenberg on the Rhine, is one of the most distinctive German distilleries that has become known beyond the country's borders in recent years.
In numerous international competitions, judges praised the high quality of St Kilian whiskies in blind tastings.
It is therefore inevitable that national and international independent single cask bottlers rummage through the St Kilian warehouses to find precious items for their clientele.
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Who is St. Kilian?
St Kilian Distillery in Rüdenau
The St. Kilian Story
A whisky friendship between Rüdenau founder and sole owner Andreas Thümmler and the Irishman David F. Hynes made a project possible in 2012 that has made all the dreams that were imagined at the time come true. Thümmler from Lower Franconia had been thinking about the idea of a distillery for a long time.
As chance would have it, he got to know and appreciate the then Director of Production of the Cooley Group, Hynes, in Kilbeggan, the oldest Irish distillery still in production today.
In short , the result of their friendship was integrated into a distillery that is exceptional in Germany, with a unique set from Scotland: Mash Tun, wooden fermentation vats and two decorative copper Swan Neck Pot Stills from the renowned coppersmiths Forsyths .
Scottish, Irish and German distilling techniques combined to create a state-of-the-art distillery that turned the small town near the romantic market town of Miltenberg into a mecca of the German whisky world.
A real stroke of luck was the recruitment of Mario Rudolf, a graduate maltster and brewer from the Technical University of Munich, who comes from nearby Amorbach. Since 2015, Rudolf has been contributing his competence, creativity and brewing know-how to the St. Kilian team in the distillation of whiskies that have attracted national and international attention. Gold medals pave their path. Commendations such as Distillery of the Year or Distiller of the Year 2024 adorn the walls.
So it's no wonder that Scottish whisky blenders like WOVEN or internationally renowned bottlers like Blackadder are rummaging around in the Kilian maturation warehouses for precious items. Other well-known Scottish bottlers are in the pipeline and will soon be releasing their single cask editions.
German bottlers such as BROTHERS IN MALT select special single cask bottlings and sell them in handy 50 cl bottles:
Example: ST. KILIAN - Ex-Sprinbank Demerara Rum
Distillery | St. Kilian Distillers |
Old | 4 1/2 years |
Bottler | Brothers In Malt |
Surname | ST. KILIAN |
distilled | 20.12.2018 |
bottled | 30.06.2023 |
Barrel type | Ex-Springbank Demerara Rum |
Barrel number | 3392 |
Number of bottles | 286 |
chill filtered | no |
dye | no |
Alcohol content % Vol. | 60.9 |
In the 2023 Blended Whisky version WOVEN Superblend, a St Kilian Single Malt is also part of the blend and gives the crossover blend a distinctive fruity character that comes from a Banyuls Sweet Wine Cask . Read more about it here: Info...
Independent Bottler Blackadder Robin Tuck selected several St. Kilian casks for his Raw Cask and Cask Strength series:
Virgin Chestnut Cask, distilled on February 27, 2019, unpeated. 273 bottles
Virgin Palantinan Oak Casks, [sic, Palatine Oak] distilled on December 20, 2017, heavily peated. Bottled November 2023. Exclusive bottling for China, 310 bottles, 61.0% vol
Virgin Wild Robinia, distilled on June 26, 2019, heavily peated. Bottled November 2023. Exclusive bottling for China, 309 bottles, 62.2% vol.
Moscatel Cask/Butt, distilled on April 5, 2017, unpeated. Bottled November 2023. Exclusive bottling for China, 724 bottles, 61.7% vol.
Virgin American Oak, distilled on February 1, 2017, unpeated. Bottled November 2023. Exclusive bottling for China, 250 bottles, 61.7% vol.
Michael Tucek says enthusiastically:
We are incredibly proud to work with them
The Blackadder St Kilian series "Exclusive Bottling for China" will delight the Chinese whisky world, as they like high alcohol concentrations in the popular Moutai spirits.
Blackadder Photos Copyright St. Kilian Distillers
Not only the Israeli team from Milk and Honey or Irish managers from Jameson found out about the complex and innovative production processes at St. Kilian. They were amazed to see the Bunker City, where CTO Mario Rudolf creatively uses over 375 different types of wood and barrels to mature the St. Kilian single malts.
The St. Kilian presentation at the ProWINE trade fair in Tokyo in mid-April enabled the Kilian marketing team to establish new trade relationships.
About the author
Ernie - Ernst J. Scheiner is the editor of the portal The Gateway to Distilleries www.whisky-distilleries.net He photographically documents over 150 distilleries from the inside and describes the production of whiskies in detail. Since his studies at the University of Edinburgh, he has been involved with the subject of whisky and has published in specialist magazines
such as The Ireland Journal, the Kleinbrennerei, Whisky Passion and The Highland Herold . Features and stories appeared in the blogs whiskyexperts, whiskyfanblog and whiskyintelligence . As head of the VHS Ingelheim, and now as whisky ambassador, he leads distillation colleges, study trips and whisky culture tours to the sources of whisky.