St. Kilian

Three whisky connoisseurs, one idea. A village of 760 souls, Germany's largest whisky distillery.

More than a thousand years after the triumph of whisky, three men came together on a mission, with "aqua vitae" close to their hearts. By aging in barrels, the art of whiskey production in Germany had been advanced to date by distillers on domestic stills. But it takes copper pot stills and wash backs made of fine woods to produce a complex single malt whisky using the original process from today's Scotland and Ireland. Our founder Andreas Thümmler, a successful technology investment banker and passionate whisky collector, together with David F. Hynes, the Irish whisky legend from Dublin, had the idea and the plan in 2012 to establish the largest whisky distillery in Germany in the beautiful Odenwald near Miltenberg on the Main. They were joined by brewmaster and master distiller Mario Rudolf from Amorbach.

The three men put the plan into action and after four years of construction, the first Spirit of St. Kilian flowed from the distillery's two 6,000-liter Forsyth copper stills in the tranquil whisky village of Rüdenau in 2016. In May 2019, the team presented its first three-year-old single malt whisky, the "First Kilian". From now on, St. Kilian sets new quality standards in the production of "Whisky made in Germany" with its Small Batch Signature Editions. Our name "St. Kilian" is dedicated to the monk from Ireland and his brothers, who already more than 1000 years before, impressed and convinced us Germanic people of the miraculous qualities of Aqua Vitae. Exactly this is still our "mission" today.