A visit to DSM

Here we go…..

Let’s begin with some history: DSM is the brainchild of an encounter, when Tim Müller met with the pharmacist and doctor in natural sciences Dr. Konrad Horn.
Tim Müller is at the head of DSM now. He had a business education, also attended the South African Wine Academy in 2013 and worked as a commercial photographer and director for over ten years before starting DSM (Check the attention to details in the distillery: the lamps are from Tom Dixon, the furniture is clearly chosen and set. Look below how the spirits are theatrically and beautifully staged.)

In the entrance area, on a black wall: the history of distillation from picking the ingredients to distilling to bottling.
Two beautiful Holstein stills for precise work in a distillery full of light.

What do they do in this distillery?
A LOT.
They do “Geist” & “Obstbrände”. For those who are still not familiar with those notions  check this and/or read below. They do macerates, distillates and sprays. Sprays are interesting you can use them for cooking, baking and mixing.
They also propose Korn, Gin and Vodka.

A beautiful present and way to try all kind of different distillates or brandies from the collection of DSM. You can access to that cool tasting kit HERE
It is a beautiful shop. I can hear you: again those “old pharmacy style bottles” ” we see them all the time”. Maybe you did. May you do. But those are actually made by a pharmacist. So it kind of makes sense.

It is indeed impressive to see the whole collection of more than 80 brandies that exists in different formats (brandies, distillate, spray…). Just going through the book they made is like reading a poem.

They did more than 500 distillations and trials before ending up with almost 80 products they are happy with.
Something I heard and like very much during our conversation: “their work is about interpreting ingredients”. They do not distill a red beet, they try to get the closest they can to the idea they have of the red beet.

What Spiritsfully liked about the way they handle their work:


01

SMALL AND BY HAND

They develop and produce spirits in small batches and by hand: from processing the raw materials, maceration and mashing,  distillation to packaging – everything is done purely by hand. As we were there we saw them packing dozens of envelops for example. Some of them got hands tainted by some spices for days. 🙂


02

LOCAL AND NATURAL

Not only they work in small batches but they also works local and outsource the closest they can most of their raw products. The spirits and brands contain neither added sugar nor artificial flavours.


03

WASTE MANAGEMENT

And last but not least, they thought about waste. Nothing is thrown away but alcohol and distillation leftovers are transformed into energy.

Our little group of fascinated visitors. We were in the heaven of smell.