Questions & answers
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Who makes the spirits, where, and what goes into them.
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The house
What is Hammer & Son?
Hammer & Son is a Danish spirits house founded by Henrik Hammer. It makes gin, vodka and rye whiskey. Its first spirit, Geranium Gin, launched in 2009. Since 2018 the house has distilled at Vintre Møller Destilleri in Kirke Såby, Lejre, Denmark. The company is Hammer & Son ApS, CVR 39190176.
Who founded Hammer & Son?
Henrik Hammer, with his father, Hans Hammer. Henrik has been a regular judge at the International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC) in London since 2004. Hans died before the first bottle of Geranium Gin was filled; the name Hammer & Son refers to the two of them.
Where are Hammer & Son spirits made?
At Vintre Møller Destilleri, Vintre Møller 29, 4060 Kirke Såby, Denmark. It is the only distillery the house runs today. Geranium Gin and Old English Gin were first distilled at Langley’s Distillery in Birmingham, England; today they are distilled at Vintre Møller too, like every Hammer & Son spirit.
What is Vintre Møller?
A historic mill site in Lejre, on Zealand, where the stream has been put to work since 1374: grain, wool, beer, mineral water, and electricity for the neighbourhood until 1952. The last brewery closed in 1987. Henrik Hammer took over the site in 2018 and it has been a distillery since. Two 500-litre copper pot stills, Nini and Mia, make the gin and whiskey, and a ten-metre artesian well gives about 50,000 litres of water a day.
The spirits
Which spirits does Hammer & Son make?
Five gins: Geranium Gin (44% ABV), Geranium 55° (55%), Old English Gin (44%), Frederiksberg London Dry Gin (44%) and The Testament Organic Gin (44%). Two vodkas: Green Meadow Organic Vodka (40%) and Silver Forest Vodka (40%). And one whiskey: Reinheart Rye Whiskey (45%).
What botanicals are in Geranium Gin?
Geranium and nine other botanicals, led by juniper. They are macerated together for 48 hours, then distilled. The geranium is harvested when its oil content is highest, typically in July, and is now grown on the organic grounds at Vintre Møller. Geranium Gin is a London Dry gin at 44% ABV. It won a Gold Medal and Best in Test at the 2009 World Spirits Awards and IWSC Gold in 2010.
What is the difference between Geranium Gin and Geranium 55°?
Strength. Geranium Gin is bottled at 44% ABV. Geranium 55° is a navy-strength version at 55%, for a Dry Martini, a G&T or a Negroni where more intensity is wanted. 55° is also the latitude of the distillery.
What botanicals are in Frederiksberg Gin?
Seven, each distilled separately and then blended: juniper, coriander, pink grapefruit peel, wild angelica, liquorice root, lavender from the gardens at Landbohøjskolen, and acorns from the oaks in Frederiksberg Have. It is a 44% London Dry gin, named for the Copenhagen borough where Henrik Hammer lived for many years, and it won IWSC gold in 2017.
What is Old English Gin?
An Old Tom-style gin at 44% ABV, made from a 1783 recipe with eleven botanicals: juniper, coriander, lemon, orange, angelica, cassia, liquorice, cinnamon, orris, nutmeg and cardamom, with a few grams of sugar per litre. It is bottled in reused champagne bottles with cork and organic wax. It won gold at the IWSC, the Ultimate Spirits Challenge, San Francisco World Spirits and Los Angeles Wine & Spirits in 2013–14, and was named World’s Best Gin at the 2015 World Gin Awards.
What is The Testament Organic Gin?
An organic 44% gin built from the thirteenth-century herbal writings of Henrik Harpestreng of Roskilde, physician to King Erik Plovpenning, who used juniper, angelica, nettle, serpentina and dandelion. In the glass: straight juniper, quiet citrus, herbal tea and a thread of liquorice.
What are Green Meadow and Silver Forest vodka made from?
Both are distilled from wheat and bottled at 40% ABV. Green Meadow Organic Vodka, released in August 2020, uses organic wheat and is cut only with the mill’s artesian well water; in 2020 it won gold at The Vodka Masters and 92 points at the IWSC. Silver Forest Vodka, released in February 2020, is cut with birch sap tapped in early March from Ordrup forest.
What is Reinheart Rye Whiskey?
A single-cask rye whiskey at 45% ABV, made by Henrik Hammer with his friends Kristian and Terkel and aged 6–7 years in American virgin oak at the mill. Early releases were small: 220 bottles from the 2014 cask and 436 from the 2015 casks. Reinheart Rye 2015 won gold from The Spirits Business in 2023.
Organic and the mill
Are Hammer & Son spirits organic?
Vintre Møller Destilleri is a certified organic company, under Danish state control and the Ø mark. Green Meadow Organic Vodka, The Testament Organic Gin and Geranium 55° are organic, and the barley on the estate is grown organically.
Where does the water come from?
From the estate’s own artesian well, ten metres deep, which gives about 50,000 litres a day. An accredited laboratory sampled the well outlet on 6 July 2023 and found the water clear, without odour and within the drinking-water limits then in force. Read the water analysis (PDF).
For the trade
Do you supply bars, hotels and restaurants?
Yes. Hammer & Son gin and vodka are available to hotels, restaurants, bars and events in a five-litre pouch (about seven 70 cl bottles) or a ten-litre bag-in-box (about fourteen). Write to hh@hammerandson.com or call +45 26 24 99 70. See The Trade.
Do you make private-label spirits?
Now and then. Hammer & Son has made gin and vodka under their own names for a number of hotels and restaurants. Mention it when you write to hh@hammerandson.com.