"In passing the bar, I heard the usual interrogatory at the bar-keeper:

"Have you got any good gin, sir?"

"Yes, sir, Hollands."

"Well, mix me a cocktail - I want to wet up."

(J.E. Alexander, Transatlantic Sketches, 1833)

On the 3rd of September I attended the launch of what I consider the biggest innovation in the white spirits segment for years. To be precise it's rather a reinvention. It was the global launch of Bols Genever in Amsterdam. Why do I think this launch will have some impact on our industry?

Bols is the first brand stepping out there and communicating the 19th century, the first cocktail century as we know it, as it's products heritage. The brand is digging out the cocktail past to make bartenders and wholesalers stock the product. And this comes only months after Bols announced they would relaunch Galliano liqueur with the original recipe and a new abv level. Where the liqueur is definitely something to take notice of, a white spirit is the king of sales in our business. And Bols Genever is definitely aiming for the speed rail!

Over the last couple of years it's been mainly Philip Duff, the former Bols brand ambasador, who's been preaching the story of the cocktail genever. We at Mixology had a couple of articles on this topic last year in our German print Issue 3/2007. It was Dave Wondrich who has dug out the verification for Genever actually being on of four original base spirits in the first professional American cockail bars. When he was doing research for his highly acclaimed book Imbibe! he discovered that the amount of Dutch genever imported to America was six times higher than the amount of gin shipped over from Britain. This leads to the conclusion that where ever you find the word "gin" in the first cocktail books (Jerry Thomas Bartender's Guide etc.) you have to read "genever". And there's many more quotes and traces like the one above from the Transatlantic Sketches, that indicate Hollands or genever was actually the white spirit of choice in the first American cocktail century.

Whenever though Phil Duff or Dutch bartenders served me genever cocktails over the last couple of years, I always found the flavour too strong and overpowering, to make this a proper base spirit. Genever has that distinct fruitiness that sets it apart from British gin. The Bols lab has obviously realized this and worked on a new more palatable cocktail spirit.

The first Bols genever was produced in the year 1664. Genever uses malt wine in its production method. For Malt wine the mash (a grain mix consisting of corn, rye and wheat) is distilled to a fairly low abv level: ca. 55 abv. This imakes the spirit retain those fruity aromas mentioned above. The malt wine is distilled again with selected botanicals in a second step. If you now look at how the English adapted "Dutch courage", you can see that they sort of took a short-cut. English gin was made from pure grain alcohol, infused, mazerated or steamed with botanicals and finally sweetened to what we today refer to as Old Tom Gin. The sweetening might have been the effort to mimic the sweet fruitiness of genever. Just a guess. Obviously the production methods were refined over the decades and centuries. For now I just want to leave it with a rough sketch to help the reader understand genever a little bit more.

The Bols genever obviously has been undergoing a lot of changes, too. One important change happened in the year 1820. It was in this year, that the master distillers created a new genever recipe. The genever produced according to thie recipe was exported to the United States for the first time three years later. And this was the genever, people in America started refering to as "Hollands". It was in the 20th century that Bols stopped exporting genever to America. As Sandie van Doorne, Bols Communications Director, told me, the reason for this were the two world wars. They eliminated trade and led to a shortage in raw materials. It was in the 20th century, too, that the general taste of people turned more "dry" and the bar flies probably started to prefer English dry gin in their cocktails.

When Bols Master Distiller Piet van Leijenhorst started working on the new cocktail genever, he went back to the recipe from 1820. In cooperation with bartenders he developed a softer but still very aromatic spirit, that is bottled at 42 abv. The Bols team is obviously very proud of their new cocktail genever. They even recommend to enjoy it neat. When they served the first cocktail at the press conference, I was very curious how the new spirit would perfom. I took a sip of the Collins served - and I was immediately convinced! This was a perfect drink! Accessable, yet aromatic, and with a perfect balance of ingredients. This new genever has volume and fruit, but it doesn't dominate the other ingredients too much. I didn't like the Old Fashined they served later though. I'm just not a big fan of using white and unaged spirits in an Old Fashioned.

The bottle of the new Bols genever was desinged by ,staat. It resembles the look of the old clay jugs and is made from a special black glass. The words "Bols Genever Amsterdam 1575" were done in exactly the same typo that Dutch entrepeneurs used to decorate the windows of theirs bars and coffee houses. Bols will produce a special 10th century style cocktail glass series made in the same style as the bottle, too. As you can see this company is serious about heritage.

There is three markets in total that will get Bols genever this year: Holland, Great Britain and the USA. The USA will see the litre bottle come in at 44,95 Dollar. In the UK the Bols genver will be 24,95 GBP (0.7 l) while it will cost Euro 29,95 in Holland. There were a lot of American and British journalists, bar-owners and distributors at the launch. Bols is aiming high. Well, it's a white spirit afer all. There's no plans for distribution in the GSA countries yet, but I'm sure we'll see the first bottles pop up in bars before christmas.

Link:

www.bolsgenever.com