www.prenzel.com

 In 1989, Robert Wuest visited Hugh and Chris Steadman at their cherry orchard on the outskirts of Blenheim. Robert came from an old distilling family in Alsace in Eastern France, a region famed for its eaux-de-vie (“fruit brandies.”) Amongst the cherry blossoms an idea came to him.

In Alsace, small mobile stills had been a traditional part of village life for many generations. After World War II, in an attempt to simplify the collection of duties on alcohol, the French government outlawed these artisanal stills. Those that escaped destruction went into hiding. Alouette, as she was to become known, was one such political fugitive. Discovered cowering in a widow's cellar in Mulhouse, she was smuggled across the Swiss border and then shipped to NZ.

The initial distilling trials were carried out in a shed at the back of the cherry orchard with Leon Sorg, an Alsatian distiller, training a Kiwi apprentice who later followed him back to Alsace for further training.

The results were promising. Marlborough's high sunshine hours along with the unpolluted skies and vigorous soils, offered the potential to produce fruit brandies of exceptional quality. This finding was confirmed four years later with a gold medal won by Prenzel’s Pear William brandy at Destillata, the world’s largest open fruit brandy competition, held annually in Austria.

The first commercial fruit brandy distillery in the Southern Hemisphere was subsequently established in Blenheim in 1992. Initially it was known as the Alsace NZ Distilling Co. Ltd., producing fruit brandies, tipsy cherries and Waterloo Gin. 

For more information please visit our website: www.prenzel.com