STAUNING

Big skies, moorland and 200 kilometres of shifting dunes. A remote village on the West Coast of Denmark, nine friends (a doctor, a chef, a butcher, a teacher, a helicopter pilot and four engineers), two small pot stills and an old butchery.

The founders of Stauning Whisky didn't have much when they started out in 2005. Least of all, any knowledge of whisky-making, but they shared passion, curiosity and the will to experiment and create. However, they had the land around them: The wind, the sea, the fields, the heather and the peat. And some of Denmark's finest water. What could possibly go wrong?

Having next to nothing, the nine friends had to find their own ways to achieve their vision: A 100% Danish whisky, one which reflected the place and could stand comparison to the finest from around the world. “We had to make our whisky with what grew around us,” says Lasse, one of the founders. “The same applied to the engineering. We just used and adapted what was lying around, saw what we could replicate from a normal distillery, and then fine-tune”. 

In 2018, Stauning opened the doors to a new and modern, purpose-built distillery. The distillery is at the forefront of a revival of the region.  Even though capacity now has risen ten-fold, it's still a small distillery. And inside, the Stauningers are still making whisky their own way with small pot stills, open floor malting and direct fire heating. Not because they are stubborn, but because they insist on doing things their own way: The Stauning way.