Ketel One Vodka - Difford`s Guide

Ketel One Vodka
Ketel One is a vodka I have personally respected and
been very close to for many years. In an age where marketeers
create brand stories for new vodkas, Ketel One can
legitimately claim a family distilling heritage that
stretches back more than 300 years.
Words: Simon Difford Pictures: Alys Tomlinson
first came across Ketel One Vodka in 1998, the year after John Coe and I
launched CLASS magazine. I was very new to publishing but an old hand at
wholesaling spirit and liquor brands, so I knew a great product when I saw
one. I made enquiries with the Dutch embassy in London, with a view to
making contact with Ketel One’s producers, as I was keen for my friend and
business partner to make Ketel One available in the UK. I had already
persuaded John to import some products he was less than sure about, but
unsurprisingly with Ketel he proved even keener than me.
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The embassy put me in touch with Bob, a member of the Nolet family which
owns Ketel One. I found myself having a telephone conversation with him
where I introduced ourselves and found myself asking whether we could be
the UK agents for Ketel One.
Thankfully Bob did not write me off as a crank, and not long after, John’s
newly formed InSpirit Brands launched Ketel One in the UK. Back then, and
actually for years after, CLASS magazine and InSpirit shared offices, so I
know better than most how this new Dutch vodka was seeded in London’s
best bars. However, before I come to that I’d like to tell you a little more about
the Nolet family and how they came to make a vodka that captured my
attention at a time when the vodka craze was properly getting into gear.
Brothers Bob and Carl Nolet work under the direction of their father
Carolus Sr, who represents the 10th generation of one of the world’s oldest
distilling dynasties. The Nolet family has been distilling spirits since 1691
when Joannes Nolet started his distillation business in Schiedam
(pronounced ‘Skee-dam’), Holland.
Joannes was one of the first of many distillers to establish themselves in
Schiedam, then a small fishing village. They were attracted to the area due to
the town’s proximity to the mouth of the great river Mass and its North Sea
shipping port which, in turn, helped create one of Holland’s largest grain
auctions. Thus raw materials were readily available, as was an easy means of
distribution for the finished product.
Over the generations the Nolet Distillery grew, surviving challenges such
as the French Revolution and the ensuing political instability. During the
mid-19th century, Joannes Nolet IV, representing the sixth generation of the
distilling dynasty, moved operations. His choice of location, beside a canal
connecting the river Schie and the old centre of Schiedam with the River de
Nieuwe Maas, and most importantly, just a few hundred metres from the
shipping port that continues to benefit the business today.
His son, representing the seventh generation, bought steam power to the
distillery and installed the coal-fired alembic copper pot still, ‘Distilleerketel
#1’, that’s used to make Ketel One to this day, and from which the brand takes
its name.
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Schiedam emerged as the centre for Dutch distilling, and by 1882 the
Nolet distillery was one of 394 distilleries operating there. Jenever, then
known as ‘Holland’s gin’, was a popular and respected spirit across Europe
and beyond. The Nolets and most of the other ‘jenever distillers’ of
Schiedam specialised in the production of jenever, much of it being shipped
to the USA.
Dutch Jenever was (and still is) made in two phases – malt-wine was
triple distilled by what became known as ‘malt distillers’, before being sent
to jenever distillers, who distilled the spirit a fourth time with the addition of
juniper and other flavouring ingredients.
However, the arrival of the ‘Coffey’ still, patented by Aeneas Coffey in
1831, had a dramatic effect on the malt wine distillers of Schiedam. After
continuous distillation was introduced in the early 1900s the number of
distillers quickly began to decline as the economies of scale of continuous
distillation resulted in fewer distillers.
The cheaper, cleaner spirit produced by the new stills also led to the
creation of a new style of gin known as London Dry, named after the city
which had muscled in on Schiedam to dominate the world’s gin supply.
After World War II there remained only a handful of malt-wine distillers
in Schiedam supplying less than 40 jenever distillers. Today there are
only four.
The Eleven Generations of the Nolet distilling dynasty are:
1st: Joannes Nolet 1638-1702
2nd: Jacobus Nolet 1682-1743
3rd: Joannes Nolet 1712-1772
4th: Joannes Nolet 1747-1835
5th: Jacobus Nolet 1773-1811
6th: Joannes Nolet 1801-1861
7th: Jacobus Nolet 1836-1906
8th: Joannes Nolet 1867-1934
9th: Paulus Nolet 1915-2001
10th: Carolus Nolet Sr. 1941-present
11th: Brothers Carl Nolet Jr. (1968-present) and Bob (1970-present)
Above: Image caption please
Recipes found in Joannes Nolet’s journals, dating back to when he first
established the business in 1691, are all based around small-batch pot still
distillation. These, and subsequent journals passed down the generations,
helped inspire the company’s current chairman, Carolus Nolet Sr, when
creating the recipe and production process for Ketel One vodka.
While travelling in America, Carolus witnessed the impact ‘premium’
vodkas such as Absolut and Stolichnaya were having in America and the
number of people who were enjoying them in Martinis. He was convinced it
could make a ‘softer, silky smooth’ vodka, particularly suited to being drunk
almost neat in a Martini.
Carolus used the antique coal-fired alembic copper pot still,
‘Distilleerketel #1’, to make a pot still vodka. However, pot stills produce
very heavy-tasting vodkas which was not the character he was searching for,
so he blended this with column still vodka. His blend, Ketel One vodka, has
a crispness from the column still and the rounded sophistication from the
pot still. I have been lucky enough to sample both spirits next to each other
prior to blending and, while both would make a fabulous vodka in their own
right, such a tasting reveals that the sum is greater than the parts. After many
years of experimentation, Carolus perfected the methods and the blending
is still used today to make Ketel One.
The Nolets launched their new vodka in the United States in 1983. Back in
1902, Carolus’s grandfather had opened a distillery in Baltimore. Prohibition
forced the Nolets to concentrate their efforts in Europe and elsewhere, but
the family had historical connections in America and Carolus was determined
to resurrect the American market, convinced his new Ketel One vodka was
exactly the product to do so with.
In fact, the family was so convinced of the future success of Ketel One
vodka that Carolus’s oldest son, Carolus Junior, (Carl Jr.), moved to America
to personally handle its sales and marketing. The family took the decision to
launch Ketel One without any advertising – just conversation. Carl Jr. and his
brother Bob literally went from bar to bar with a bottle of Ketel One and a
video tape explaining how their vodka was made and generally educating bar
owners and managers about vodka and vodka production.
The brothers insisted that local wholesalers could not supply a bar with
Ketel One until one of them had called on that bar to educate the staff and
they had to personally approve the opening of a new account. They wanted to
ensure the bartenders and wait staff really knew and understood Ketel One.
They also limited each order to just three bottles at a time – no case sales. This
meant accounts had to re-order at least once a week, giving the impression
that it was selling like crazy. The Nolets did not want cases of their vodka piled
high in store rooms.
It was an unconventional approach to drinks marketing, but it proved
highly successful and Ketel One quickly established itself as one of the leading
brands in the American super premium vodka market. Thus when Ketel One
was launched in the UK in 1998, exactly the same philosophy was followed,
with Bob Nolet personally calling on every bar before it could be supplied
with Ketel One. An extra complication proved to be the lack of video players
in London bars, so incredibly a small television with built-in video was lugged
from bar to bar in order to show the all-important production video.
By 2001 Ketel One vodka had grown to become a million case brand in
America, which led the family to complement their ‘conversational’ marketing
approach with the ‘Dear Ketel One Drinker’ advertising campaign. This
heralded a new era for the brand.
In the following years it became clear that to realise its full international
potential the family would benefit from partnering with a larger distributor.
Thus in 2008, the Nolet Group created a 50/50 joint venture company with
Diageo, called Ketel One Worldwide B.V., to market and distribute Ketel One
vodka. While still acting as ambassadors for their brand, this allowed the Nolets
to concentrate their efforts on continuing to produce consistently high quality
vodka, while also increasing production to satisfy the rapidly growing demand.
Fortunately their ancestor, Joannes Nolet VI, had chosen to site the family
distillery in an area where adjacent land was available for its expansion, and over
the years Carolus Nolet purchased more land not only alongside the old
distillery but also on the opposite side of the canal. This enabled the distillery to
grow both on the historical location and to expand.
Part of the ambitious plan to expand the distillery’s capacity involved
tunnelling under the canal. Today all the distilling activity still takes place in the
old distillery, including the original coal-fired No.1 pot still, after which the
brand is named, while warehousing and distribution lies on the other side of the
canal, with supplies and bottles travelling back and forth by conveyor through
the tunnel.
The old distillery now sits amongst a complex of modern buildings. The
original distilling hall remains the hub of operations, with the main office,
housing the desk and antique safe used by generations of Nolets and the old
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offices preserved as something of a museum. This office is also decorated with
painted murals dating back to the Second World War.
Schiedam is famous for its windmills, previously used to process the grain
used in jenever production. As part of the development of the distillery,
Carolus Nolet decided to build a landmark windmill. Built to the traditional
Stellingmolen design, it looks like it dates from the same period as the
remaining historical windmills in Schiedam, but its vintage-looking sails are
cleverly disguised aerofoils and the giant windmill is actually a 21st century
wind turbine, providing power towards the running of the distillery – with
surplus power contributing to the Dutch national grid.
Commissioned in 2005, the windmill is believed to be the largest of its
type in the world. It houses a reception, exhibition areas, bar and cinema
over its ten floors. The Nolet family is truly a distilling dynasty and they
appear determined to continue to build a legacy for future generations of
Nolet distillers.
Production
The Nolet family still sources all its wheat neutral spirit (WNS) from the same
supplier Carolus’s grandfather started to buy from. Over the preceding
decades the two companies have grown together and worked to continually
improve the quality of distillate and working practices. The Nolets remain by
far its largest customer and the WNS they buy is made specifically for them,
using winter wheat sourced from the South of Holland and Northern France.
The Nolets specify a quality of WNS made using an additional fourth rec96
tification column with copper plates to produce a WNS with around fifty times less
methanol than standard WNS. This specially produced, ultra pure spirit is supplied
exclusively to the Nolets. Although highly purified, the rectification process
employed does not kill the character of the spirit. When sampled, this WNS is fresh
and lively tasting. This is the all-important base spirit base with which Ketel One
vodka is made.
The Nolets have their own one million litre tank at the WNS distillery, the level of
which is never allowed to fall below 500,000 litres. Although distilled in a continuous
process the Nolets test the WNS on a daily process and if it passes muster then it will
be added to their holding tank. Monitors in the tank confirm to the Nolets that the
tank has indeed been filled with the anticipated quantity of spirit.
Two dedicated 45,000 litre tankers are used to transport the WNS the short
distance to the Nolet Distillery, though before each tanker load is pumped to the
holding tanks in the Nolets’ own tank farm, a sample is taken and laboratory tested to
ensure its quality.
Water purified by reverse osmosis, to remove all mineral deposits, is used to
dilute the WNS to create what the Nolets refer to as ‘Ultra Wheat Spirit’. This is used
to charge the pot stills, including the original 19th century coal fired Distilleerketel
#1, which run every day. All are copies of Distilleerketel #1 and have a capacity
between 3,200 and 3,400 litres, to mimic the 3,277 litres capacity of #1. Each is
charged with 2,500 litres of Ultra Wheat Spirit.
The master distiller still hand-stokes the fire and regulates the temperature of
Distilleerketel #1, taking thermometer and hydrometer readings to control the
running of the still. The other stills are identical in design to Distilleerketel #1 but are
gas-fired and computer-controlled.
The first distillate (known as the head) of every distillation is discarded to
eliminate bad tasting volatile alcohols. Similarly, the last part of the distillate (the
tails) is also discarded due to bad tasting lower alcohols and fusel oils. Only the heart
of the distillate has the purity required to make Ketel One vodka and the average
batch produced is around 80% abv. Distillation lasts eight hours and the stills are shut
down when the heart turns to tails. In their relentless quest for purity, the Nolets
discard all heads and tails rather than adding them to the next batch as is common in
other distilleries.
The spirit produced by the pot stills is individually filtered over charcoal. The
filtered pot still spirit is rested in stainless steel tanks and blended to produce a
‘Master Pot Still Batch’. This is then married with the column still Ultra Wheat Spirit,
which has been separately filtered, before being reduced to bottling strength with
purified water, which has also been charcoal filtered, to ‘polish’ it – colour molecules
in the water are bigger and the Nolets want to ensure that Ketel One has a bright,
crystal-like appearance. Once combined, the vodka is then allowed to rest for at least
24 hours to “marry” the components.
Twelve people, selected from the staff at the distillery, form an all-important
tasting panel. Triangular tastings are performed of the UWS, master pot still batches
and finished vodka between 9:30am and 10:30am every day. As a last check, each
batch of Ketel One vodka is approved by a member of the Nolet family prior
to bottling.
The Ketel One bottle itself was designed in the style of an original Dutch crock
spirit bottle but the neck height was increased at the request of bartenders to make it
easier to pick up from the speed well of bars.
The Nolet family’s pride in their production process and reputation is obvious
when they talk about their heritage and the combination of traditional and modern
methods employed today. They also continue to support the bartending profession
throughout the world, and offer an open invitation to bartenders and consumers
alike who’d like to visit their distillery. They are fabulously hospitable and you are
sure to be touched by their commitment to family traditions, as well as modernity
and quality. If you’d like to take up what is a great opportunity, then please contact
the Nolet Distillery in advance so they can plan your personal tour. ([email protected])
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KETEL ONE
40% alc./vol.
One of the original, ultra premium vodkas. Ketel One vodka is distilled from
wheat grain using multiple column distillations, copper pot distillation,
periods of resting and charcoal filtration.
Tasting: Crystal clear, bright appearance. Clean, mineral, wet flint nose with
light white pepper spice. Superbly clean palate with a slight cracked black
pepper tingle and very faint fennel, citrus and sweet liquorice flavours. Silky
soft mouthfeel. Cleansing, crisp finish with a lively cracked black pepper
tingle. ;;;;;
KETEL ONE CITROEN
40% alc./vol.
Ketel One Citroen was launched in 2000 and is created by infusing Ketel One
vodka with citrus essential oils essence. Two different types of lemon from
Sicily are used to impart a rich sweetness, whilst a variety from Spain gives a
full distinctive taste. Lemon from Guinea, West Africa results in a more
intense character, whilst two varieties of lime from the Caribbean give Ketel
One Citroen an incredibly fresh note.
Tasting: Crystal clear, bright appearance. Clean, zingy fresh lemon oils and
freshly squeezed lemon juice nose with lemon grass and white pepper spice.
Clean, lemony palate – both zest and fresh juice. Very slight honey sweetness.
Cleansing lemon zest, lemon sherbet finish which fades with aniseed and
lemon meringue pie filling. ;;;;;
KETEL ONE
ORANJE
40% alc./vol.
Ketel One Oranje was launched on 30 April 2010 to coincide with Queen’s
Day, a national holiday in The Netherlands honouring the Queen’s official
birthday. The colour orange represents the Dutch royal family name: The
Family Nassau, House of Orange.
Ketel One Oranje is made by infusing Ketel One vodka with a combination of
Mandarin oranges from Italy and Valencia oranges from Florida and Brazil.
Tasting: Crystal clear, bright appearance. Freshly scratched mandarin, small
satsuma orange zest nose with almost waxy aromas. The clean palate has dry
satsuma-like flavours, drier than the nose suggests with a pithy orange quality
and a touch of warming spice. Creamy, zesty orange finish. ;;;;;+
www.KetelOne.com
Nolet Distillery - Hoofdstraat 14, P/O Box 38, 3100 AA Schiedam, Holland.
[email protected]
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