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As the founder of the St. Kilian Whisky Distillery in Rüdenau, located in Germany’s Odenwald region, Andreas Thümmler is a well-known name among whisky enthusiasts throughout Germany. Having collected whisky since his youth, he initiated a project in 2012 that is second to none. Using the finest equipment and following traditional Scottish production methods, he began producing whisky of the highest quality, which has since been awarded more than 300 gold medals. Today, Andreas Thümmler produces around 400,000 bottles of whisky annually, with production continuing to increase significantly.
The distillery was designed and established with the expertise of David Hynes. An engineer holding a degree from Trinity College Dublin and an MBA from Harvard, Hynes had previously spent many years working at Kilbeggan Distillery. Before founding St. Kilian, Andreas Thümmler enjoyed an internationally successful career as an investment banker and venture capitalist. During this first professional career, he played a key role in facilitating and shaping several multi-billion-dollar transactions. Together, the two formed a dream team for producing exceptional whisky.
In this interview with Xecutives.net, Andreas Thümmler talks about his career before founding St. Kilian and provides insights into his German whisky distillery, which produces premium whisky using traditional Scottish production methods. The numerous whisky projects are remarkably exciting. More than 20,000 whisky enthusiasts and fans therefore travel to the Odenwald every year to visit the distillery and sample its whiskies. St. Kilian collaborates with the Bavarian Royal House and also works with film legend Terence Hill, with whom Andreas Thümmler has likewise completed a significant business transaction.
Xecutives.net: Mr Thümmler, over the past 14 years or so, you have built your own whisky distillery. You produce whisky according to traditional Scottish methods, where the spirit is generally distilled only twice. Before we take a closer look at the whisky itself, however, I would like to ask you – following our interviews with whisky collector Martin Degen and whisky legend Claudio Bernasconi, both from Switzerland – what your connection to Switzerland is.
Andreas Thümmler: I know Switzerland relatively well and visit it regularly. My eldest son is studying mechanical engineering and lives in Switzerland. I also enjoy spending time in Graubünden and Lugano, where I still have relatives. In Switzerland, I know Dr Dolf Stockhausen, a fascinating personality, particularly when it comes to whisky. That is also how I came to know Hergiswil, the beautiful town where he lives. He owns Seven Seals Whisky.
Originally from Krefeld, Germany, he owned a successful medium-sized company there. His company invented the super-absorbent granulate used in baby nappies – a material with exceptional absorbency that made it ideal for that purpose. He has also been, and continues to be, involved in several other companies, including Clariant, headquartered near Basel.
I mention him here at the distillery because I have known Dolf Stockhausen very well for many years, and he is also an outstanding whisky connoisseur. Among other things, he has developed a process that allows whisky to mature more quickly. I have tasted these whiskies, and in a blind tasting it is almost impossible to determine which whisky has been rapidly matured and which has been matured in the traditional way. That certainly produced a real wow effect for me.
At present, however, he is not yet allowed to call this spirit whisky because the Scots object to it. Nevertheless, he is working on that. He also acquired Langatun, the whisky distillery in Langenthal. In Canada, he owns Beaver’s Dram. Companies need people like him – innovative individuals with an engineering background.

Xecutives.net: In 2012, you founded St. Kilian, a whisky distillery in the Lower Franconia region of Germany. The distillery enjoys an excellent reputation, and every year well over 20,000 visitors come to learn more about St. Kilian and to enjoy your whisky.

Andreas Thümmler: We are a distillery very much like those you find in Scotland. I’m talking about distilleries such as Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Glenmorangie. That is the premium level we aspire to. We actually welcome well over 20,000 visitors to the distillery every year, all eager to learn more about our St. Kilian whisky.
In the coming days, we will also be hosting a whisky festival here, and we expect around 3,000 visitors to attend.
Nearby, we currently have more than 15,000 whisky casks in storage, with an average maturation period of around six years. The whisky is stored in former NATO bunkers in the Odenwald under ideal climatic conditions – and safely as well (laughs).
We offer visitors a shuttle bus to the site so they can see for themselves how the whisky is stored. There are around 120 bunkers altogether, which are also used by other companies for various purposes. At present, we have approximately 25 bunkers filled with whisky, and that number continues to grow.
Here in Rüdenau we are situated at around 170 metres above sea level, while the bunkers in the Odenwald are located at an elevation of about 480 metres. The area is heavily forested, and the bunkers have extremely thick concrete walls. The climate inside the bunkers remains remarkably constant, creating excellent conditions for maturation. The angel’s share in the bunkers is approximately the same as it is in Scotland.
Xecutives.net: How did you grow up, and how did this region shape you?
Andreas Thümmler: I grew up here in this part of the Odenwald. At that time, Rüdenau had around 1,000 inhabitants; today there are only about 700. I was born in Miltenberg on the River Main, a beautiful, romantic medieval town with around 10,000 inhabitants.
I was brought up in a strictly Catholic family and served here as an altar boy. At some point, however, the area began to feel too small for me, and I wanted to explore the wider world. Initially, that meant Frankfurt and Würzburg. As a teenager, I went on excursions and kept discovering new places that fascinated me.
Back then, television series such as Beverly Hills, 90210 were popular, and I thought to myself: one day I have to go to California. At around the age of eighteen, I was finally able to spend a year in the United States as part of a high school exchange programme. I ended up in Schuylkill Haven, right in the middle of Pennsylvania.
In a way, I had gone from the frying pan into the fire. I had moved from one small rural town in Germany to another small rural town in Pennsylvania. It was nothing like what I had imagined. There was nothing of Beverly Hills, 90210. Everything was very traditional, much as you might know it from films. People lived rather secluded lives and largely kept to themselves. For me, it was something of a culture shock. There was no internet, people still wrote letters, many households did not even have a telephone, and there was a certain underlying conservatism that you could sense everywhere.
Xecutives.net: I hope you played baseball while you were there!
Andreas Thümmler: (Laughs) No, but I was on the wrestling team. Back then it was called freestyle wrestling. It wasn’t as strictly regulated as conventional wrestling. By that time, however, I already held brown belts in both judo and karate, so I was able to make use of my martial arts techniques. I was a little slimmer then than I am today, but I still competed in the heaviest weight class. That meant stepping into the ring with real Americans weighing around 200 kilograms. I actually won from time to time because nobody could quite figure out my fighting technique.
At high school, rather like in the movies, I got to know the school’s beauty queen. She was a wonderful young woman and eventually came back to Germany with me. I spent a year there and, despite everything, had a very good time.
Although I really didn’t want to at first, I had to pledge allegiance to the American flag. When I was told that I wouldn’t be allowed to attend high school unless I took the pledge, I eventually did it (laughs). I persevered.
Back in Germany, in the Odenwald, I completed my Abitur. Later, I was very fortunate to receive a scholarship to attend the European Business School in the Rheingau. I studied Business Information Systems at the private university. Computer science had fascinated me even then. As a result, I became something of a technology expert, and my professional career led me to Rothschild Bank, where I worked as an M&A specialist.
I was still very young but already involved in numerous corporate acquisitions and disposals. It was the era of the privatisation of the major telecommunications companies. Later, I moved to London to join Warburg, now part of UBS. The market was booming, and at some point a few friends asked whether I wanted to start a business with them. I already had considerable experience and expertise in dealing with clients, and the technology sector was really beginning to take off. So we built our own investment bank.
Xecutives.net: What motivated you to pursue all of that?
Andreas Thümmler: (Laughs) Well, I still wanted to get to California – to Beverly Hills. I finally managed it on my second attempt. Through the European Business School, I was able to spend a year studying in the United States. I went to San Diego and was close to Silicon Valley. I completed a number of internships with different banks and was always working at the intersection of investment and technology.
When I graduated, I received numerous offers from banks and companies. I could have joined Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers, but somehow Rothschild appealed to me more. So I returned to Frankfurt and later moved on to London.
We then founded our own company. We realised that we needed a strong presence, so we expanded to San Francisco and also to Berlin. At the time, Berlin was Europe’s epicentre for investment and technology companies. That was where I got to know the Samwer brothers, as well as many others who were pursuing similar ventures.
Numerous start-ups were founded during that period, and we ensured they had access to venture capital. Many of these companies became highly successful with our support, and we subsequently helped sell them. That enabled me to build an extensive network and establish a strong reputation.
We earned a great deal of money, but our clients were also extremely grateful for the contribution we made and the services we provided. We were the progressive advisers standing alongside these entrepreneurs, making sure everything came together successfully.
Xecutives.net: We’re talking about extraordinary times, when money hardly seemed to matter and everyone wanted a share of the technology boom. Many people remember that era from films such as The Wolf of Wall Street. But how did whisky enter the picture?
Andreas Thümmler: Yes, those really were extraordinary times, and The Wolf of Wall Street certainly isn’t an exaggeration. That’s genuinely what it was like. Many people made enormous amounts of money. There were extravagant parties everywhere. The motto was “Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
By then, however, whisky collecting had already become my hobby. It had started when I was quite young. Whenever I travelled, I would buy whisky in duty-free shops at airports. I had always enjoyed whisky, and as my collection grew, so did my desire to learn more about it. We therefore travelled to Scotland regularly. I visited Scotland four times a year and toured distilleries there. We also travelled to Japan and many other places. At each of these distilleries, I bought a great deal of whisky.
Xecutives.net: But at that stage, the idea of producing your own world-class whisky hadn’t yet been born.
Andreas Thümmler: No, not at all. That never crossed my mind. It was simply about enjoyment. We had our whisky clubs where we exchanged ideas and smoked fine cigars together. At that time, Irish and Japanese whiskies were becoming increasingly popular, and we immersed ourselves in everything connected with them.
About 95 per cent of my whisky ended up at my mother’s house in Rüdenau. Eventually, she complained because the entire upper floor and hallway were full of whisky bottles. I realised that this had become a problem, so I moved everything into my own house.
People started calling it the “Whisky Villa”. Across three floors there were hundreds of bottles of whisky. We had created a wonderful atmosphere, complete with dartboards, a pool table and everything else you could possibly need. There was even a campfire outside. We also had the “Whisky Friends of Rüdenau”, who always helped me whenever visitors from all over the world came to stay with me.I then began cataloguing the bottles.
At the time there was an app called Whiskybase. You could upload a photograph of every bottle and register it. The app also showed the current market value. That was when I first realised just how valuable my collection had become.
Many of the bottles had increased several-fold in value, and I was genuinely astonished by the prices they were fetching. I had bought bottles for £200 that were suddenly worth £6,000. To test the market, I listed one on eBay, and it sold within two minutes (laughs).
I then created a spreadsheet and started doing the calculations. That’s when I discovered that my collection was appreciating by around 30 per cent every year.
Xecutives.net: But you hadn’t originally viewed whisky as an investment?
Andreas Thümmler: No, not at all. I simply loved the product and enjoyed drinking it.
Eventually, though, I became slightly concerned because we had consumed a great deal of whisky, including bottles that were 30 or 40 years old. Some of those bottles were worth several thousand euros. Today, no one would do that anymore.
Many bottles had already been opened and partially consumed, although the sheer size of the collection meant there were still plenty that remained unopened. I started looking at the statistics, and it became obvious that the more time passed, the more valuable the whisky became.
Xecutives.net: Given both the consumption and the appreciation in value, you really should have been buying casks instead.
Andreas Thümmler: That’s exactly when I first started thinking about buying a cask. Whenever I visited a distillery, I would ask whether I could purchase one. Everywhere I went, I was told that wasn’t possible – that they only did things like that for centenary celebrations, and even then I would have to put my name on a waiting list.
It wasn’t about the price. They simply didn’t want to sell me a cask.
Eventually, I got to know someone at Kilbeggan. He was both the Managing Director and the Master Distiller. They had a few casks there belonging to Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth and other well-known personalities. So I pointed out that they obviously did have customer casks.
They explained that it was purely a marketing exercise and that they had only done it because they knew it would generate publicity.
I kept asking the Master Distiller about buying a cask and pestered him for so long that he eventually agreed to sell me one. I even threatened to come back every single day until he gave in (laughs).
The only problem was that nobody knew what to charge me. We actually went into the accounting department to search through the records for some indication of what the price should be.
In the end, I bought a Kilbeggan whisky cask that had already been maturing for around three years. It was bottled some years later.
Xecutives.net: How did you end up choosing Rüdenau as the location?
Andreas Thümmler: At the time, there was an old textile factory here in Rüdenau that was up for sale. The mayor of the village approached me and suggested that I should buy the building and everything around it. There were several other textile factories here as well, but many of them had gone bankrupt. In the textile factory where St. Kilian is located today, more than 120 people worked during its heyday. That was quite a significant business. A few of these companies managed to stay in the market by changing their strategy. The others were driven out of business by competition from Asia.
Because I had been an investment banker and people knew me, quite a number of people approached me and suggested that I should take over the factory site. My mother also encouraged me to buy the premises so that the site would not become an eyesore. People were worried that a scrap dealer might move in.
So I bought the old factory. During the first few years, I rented out the warehouse space, including to a Chinese company. Then one day David Hynes, the Master Distiller from Kilbeggan, came around the corner and visited our whisky club. He said that the building would make a wonderful distillery because, from the outside, it already looked a little like one.
By that time, I had already accumulated around 30 whisky casks from various distilleries. My next step had actually been to invest in whisky. My idea was not to buy just one cask from a distillery, but many casks.
I was in Dublin and got to know John Teeling and his sons. He asked me how many casks I wanted to buy, and I told him 1,000 casks. He said that wasn’t possible. It was simply too many. Of course, with that amount of whisky I would also have become one of his competitors. It would have been like selling the family silver just to generate some quick cash flow.
He offered me 10 or 20 casks of various qualities, but that wasn’t really what interested me. It became clear to me that if I wanted 1,000 casks filled with good whisky, I would have to start producing whisky myself and build a strong brand around it.

Xecutives.net: Did you also consider buying an existing whisky distillery?
Andreas Thümmler: That was indeed an option, and I looked at several distilleries that were available for purchase, including Mackmyra in Sweden. I also looked at one in the Outer Hebrides, the Isle of Harris Distillery. At the time, they had hired Glenmorangie’s former Head of Marketing, a very interesting and highly capable man. His name is Simon Erlanger, and he had spent 17 years at Glenmorangie.
I would have had the opportunity to invest there and could, for example, have acquired a 10 per cent stake, perhaps even a little more.
At the same time, I looked at what existed in Germany. There was only SLYRS at Lake Schliersee. I knew all these companies, including the small fruit spirit distillers. Many of these small distilleries also produced whisky, but they used German equipment – Kothe distillation systems – which produced whisky more like a barley spirit.
By that time, I had also been to Japan and visited the ten new distilleries there. Germany simply didn’t have a whisky distillery built according to the Scottish model.
I also noticed how the whisky business in Japan was absolutely booming. The Japanese kept winning one gold medal after another – just think of Yamazaki 12.
Then David Hynes came along and told me that he had already done all this ten times before and knew exactly how it could also be done in Rüdenau.
David was already over 60 years old and fully committed. At that time, he was still under contract with Teeling. However, Teeling was being sold to Jim Beam. David is an engineer and also holds an MBA from Harvard University. He runs the whisky business with great passion.
Then it emerged that the Japanese drinks company Suntory, producer of Schweppes in Japan, would acquire Jim Beam in a USD 16 billion takeover. David no longer wanted to be part of that. He had always worked well with the Americans, but at his age he no longer wanted to work with the Japanese. He felt that everything would now be changed, dismantled and reorganised.
He left the distillery, flew to Frankfurt with his wife and came to Rüdenau. His original plan was simply to spend three months here and work out the concept. That was how it all started. It was 2012.
David wasted no time. He immediately began ordering equipment. Everything he had wanted to do at Teeling, but had never been allowed to implement by his management, he was now able to realise here in Rüdenau.
At that stage, St. Kilian didn’t even exist as a company. David was a little like a loose cannon and threw himself into the project with all his knowledge and experience.
When our investments eventually exceeded EUR 2.5 million, I began wondering where all this was going to lead. As far as equipment quality was concerned, we had ordered nothing but Lamborghinis, Bugattis and Ferraris. Thanks to his extensive network, David was able to source all these components. He kept telling me that if we decided not to continue, I could always sell the equipment again for at least 20 per cent more than we had paid.
Xecutives.net: You invested an enormous amount of money in a product that could only be sold eight years later. That was a very bold step. You must have been absolutely convinced that this venture would succeed.
Andreas Thümmler: I earned a good income, always saved money, and was also self-employed. I then took my savings and used them to support David. The more I invested in St. Kilian and the distillery, the more I sold things I was not particularly attached to anymore, including a penthouse in Frankfurt and other assets.
Together with my colleagues, I also sold our company—a corporate finance and M&A advisory firm—to Stifel in the United States, and decided to focus entirely on St. Kilian. It was important to have a proper business plan in place.
Production then started in 2016. The first whisky was ready in 2019.
We submitted the whisky and took part in various championships and competitions. We won one gold medal after another. Today, we look back on 300 gold medals that we have won with our whisky.

Xecutives.net: That is pretty convincing proof that the whisky you produce is of exceptional quality. Is this mainly due to David’s excellent equipment, or what exactly is behind it?

Andreas Thümmler: The top-quality equipment plays a very important role. The equipment is embedded in high technology. Everything is automated, and we have excellent quality control. The entire operation is based on German-Swiss engineering.
What was equally important, however, was that David trained our team here. My people have visited distilleries all over the world, including Yamazaki in Japan.
We also work exclusively with full maturation. We use many different cask types. If, for example, we use a rum cask or a sherry cask, a conventional whisky distillery would typically mature the whisky for ten years in a relatively simple and inexpensive bourbon cask before applying a cask finish by transferring the whisky into a better cask, for example a rum cask. That rum cask may then be used ten times and gradually loses its intensity.
From the very beginning, however, we opted for full maturation. We use many different casks, which has resulted in us now having around 12,000 casks in storage, representing approximately 400 different cask types.
So, when we use a rum cask, the whisky has spent the entire ten years maturing in that rum cask.
We work according to the cuvée principle. When we produce a bottling, it usually contains whisky from three or four different cask types. I wouldn’t call this blending. Blending means combining whiskies from different distilleries. We only use our own whisky – we simply combine it correctly. The whiskies from the different casks are married together.
Xecutives.net: That is similar to an assemblage in wine.
Andreas Thümmler: Exactly. That’s precisely what it is. What we do is more expensive and more complex. We first have to build up our cask inventory and secure access to the casks themselves.
When it came to marrying the whiskies, David was often there to support us. We experimented extensively and gradually developed different product lines, initially with limited editions. At first, these consisted of only a few hundred bottles, then several thousand. Last year, we sold a total of 400,000 bottles.
Eventually, we also introduced our standard range. During the first few years, we focused exclusively on special editions.
We also have the Kilian Signature Edition. There was Signature No. 1, followed by No. 2, matured in Amarone casks. That whisky really took off. Today, those bottles have become collectors’ items.
That’s why I always say people should buy three bottles: one to drink, one to collect, and one to sell later on (laughs).
We are currently growing at around 30 per cent per year. At present, around 95 per cent of our sales are generated in Germany, with a little more now coming from Switzerland and some from Austria.
Switzerland has enormous potential. Entering the market wasn’t particularly easy, however. We had to do quite a bit of convincing. But with 300 gold medals, you can certainly make a convincing case.
We are currently in the process of internationalising the business. We want to expand into France through La Maison du Whisky, we are active in Poland and Hungary, we are also present in Italy, and we have delivered our first shipment to China. We have also exported to Japan, and very recently we even received an enquiry from Nigeria.
At the moment, we are not yet quite cash-flow positive, but we will be soon. A project like this simply takes a great deal of time. We have invested enormously in the distillery. If someone had told me many years ago just how large the investment would eventually become, I probably would never have embarked on the whole venture.
Xecutives.net: You also sell entire whisky casks. How does that side of the business work?
Andreas Thümmler: We have sold casks in the four-digit range, and that business is also doing very well. Customers can have their casks bottled under the St. Kilian brand or with their own special label. Whatever they don’t wish to use themselves, we sell on their behalf through St. Kilian on a commission basis.
We have sold many 400-litre casks. However, once they are bottled, that’s a very large quantity. That’s why we also introduced 30-litre casks. From one of those, customers receive around 40 or 50 bottles. They can drink ten themselves, give ten away as gifts and perhaps sell or collect another ten.
We don’t actively advertise this service, but many people know about it and buy casks.
Xecutives.net: How many people do you employ here?
Andreas Thümmler: We currently employ around 30 people here in Rüdenau. Most of them work in sales and marketing. We also make extensive use of AI. We are very progressive in that respect. We even have our own AI employee working for us. His name is Kilian Sanctus. He is entirely AI! He is also active on Facebook and other social media platforms. He is constantly learning, can optimise SEO, conduct sales conversations, handle marketing and much more. What he does effectively replaces the work of around three employees.
It is quite remarkable what is technically possible today.
Xecutives.net: Your product portfolio is very broad. One particularly striking whisky features Bud Spencer and Terence Hill on the label. I know that you have worked with the latter. How did that collaboration come about, and what other projects are you involved in?

Andreas Thümmler: We recently acquired a second brand. It is the Bud Spencer & Terence Hill Whisky.
Initially, we had signed a licensing agreement with Bavaria Film in Munich allowing us to use the brand. We quickly realised that sales were exploding. That was when I had the idea of purchasing the brand outright.
To do that, we had to negotiate with the Italians. We held several meetings with Terence Hill. At the time, he and his son had just produced a short football western called The Socceritos, and they were looking for investors for a much larger Netflix western production.
We reached an agreement and acquired the worldwide brand rights for whisky and all other spirits from the Italians.
We transferred everything into a separate subsidiary called Hero Spirits GmbH. The brand is now completely separate and no longer operates under St. Kilian.
The whisky that was recently sold by Denner in Switzerland contained around 15 per cent St. Kilian whisky, while the remainder was Irish whisky, making it a blended whisky.
We have also worked on other projects, for example with rock bands, including the Scorpions Whisky and Judas Priest Whisky. At present, we are working on a project with the Bavarian Royal House. It centres on the House of Wittelsbach and Neuschwanstein Castle. We have created a King Ludwig Whisky. This is our ultra-premium product.
Our aim is always to produce whisky using methods that deliver the highest quality. We also constantly strive to create things that simply have never existed before.
Xecutives.net: We tasted this whisky, and it is indeed outstanding. What makes it so special?
Andreas Thümmler: We bottled the whisky in Nymphenburg porcelain bottles. The porcelain manufactory also belongs to the Royal House. This was the first whisky ever to be sold in a porcelain bottle. Before doing so, we spent around three years conducting research and matured whisky in stoneware vessels. The fans were enthusiastic about the quality this type of maturation produced. The whisky becomes smoother and more mellow in these stoneware vessels. That has to do with the surface of the stoneware. It is well known that whisky stored in glass bottles no longer changes in flavour – not even after 200 years. Bottles of that age have been found and tasted, and the whisky tastes exactly as it did on the day it was bottled. With stoneware and porcelain, however, chemical processes continue to take place. The effect is very pronounced at first but gradually diminishes until it becomes only marginal.
As a result, the whisky undergoes an additional two to three years of post-maturation inside the porcelain vessel.
With this product, we want to enter the luxury segment.
We have also produced whisky matured in Mizunara casks. Mizunara is the Japanese water oak, which grows only in certain regions of Japan. Through our activities, we established contacts with people who could supply us with this wood. The casks are coopered for us in the Palatinate.
These bottles sold out almost immediately and are also in great demand in Japan. Within a very short period, the value of these bottles multiplied several times over.
Xecutives.net: Mr Thümmler, one needs to understand whisky to invest so heavily in it, and you can look back on enormous experience. How do you continue your education in this field?
Andreas Thümmler: I still actively collect whisky and regularly visit other distilleries.
I have also completed various examinations, including one offered by the Scotch Whisky Association. I prepared thoroughly for that examination because it is very comprehensive. Before the exam, one of the staff members took me aside and said I shouldn’t be disappointed if, as a German, I failed. He told me that it could happen and that there would be no shame in it. So I took the examination and became the only German ever to achieve a perfect score of 100 points. Part of the exam involves identifying six whiskies in a blind tasting (laughs).
Yes, you really do have to know what you’re doing. But everyone working here shares the same passion, and we all continue learning every single day.
Xecutives.net: You have a whisky room where visitors can sample around 1,000 whiskies from other producers around the world. How did you come up with the idea of offering other people’s whiskies in your own distillery?
Andreas Thümmler: At first, the idea wasn’t particularly popular with the people at St. Kilian. They felt that we shouldn’t be promoting other whiskies.
I never agreed with that view. After all, with 300 gold medals, we certainly have no reason to be embarrassed about our own whisky. Quite the opposite.
Visitors have the opportunity to taste a wide variety of whiskies, including our own St. Kilian whisky, and then everyone can form their own opinion.

Xecutives.net: Mr Thümmler, thank you very much for these fascinating conversations about whisky and for giving us so many insights into your passion and your wonderful distillery. I wish you and your team every continued success.
© 2026 by Christian Dueblin. All rights reserved. Other publications are only allowed with the explicit permission of the author.
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