You may think Ketel One Vodka, one of the leading vodka brands in America, has been around forever. In one sense, it almost has. In another sense…it most certainly has not!
I explain…and I can explain, because…
I was in Schiedam, Holland recently, the home of Ketel One Vodka–a thrilling trip!–to get the whole time line. As well as a little schnockered.
Holland, as you may well know, is the ancestral home of spirits infused with juniper berries. The Dutch called this flavorful spirit jenever, and have been distilling it since the late 1500s, originally as a medicine.
But jenever’s popularity as a drink grew inordinately in the 1600s in Holland…the same century that there was considerable engagement between the Dutch and the English…military engagement, that is. One of the spoils of war, for the English, was their new familiarity with jenever (there’s nothing like alcohol after a long day shooting muskets!). The Brits liked it so much, in fact, they took the idea home with them…and developed their own version, called London Dry Gin…drier (obviously), lighter, less juniper-y.
They sure as hell won that war! Today, the whole world drinks London Dry Gin. The gin you know is undoubtedly London Dry Gin: Tanqueray, Bombay, Boodles…all of them!
But the Dutch kept making jenever, their own style of gin.
Circa 1690, enter the Nolet family, Huguenots from France. They moved to Schiedam, kind of a Rotterdam suburb, and got involved in the thriving spirits business–based in Schiedam, because ships arrived with grain from all over, leading to Schiedam’s grain market and, ultimately, to spirits.
A canal drifting through Schiedam
If you visit lovely Schiedam today (about 75,000 people) you will see the tallest windmills in the world–windmills to grind the grain, and tall to tower above the warehouses.
A towering Schiedam windmill
A festive wall in downtown Schiedam
Nolet soon had a big hit–Jenever!–coming out of its originial still, known as a “ketel” in Dutch. Their original still, of course, was Ketel 1…and, believe it or not, it is still distilling today!
The original Ketel 1 at nolet
Moi, stoking the coals under Ketel 1; Photo courtesy of Nolet Distillery
However, by late 20th century, the jenever market wasn’t exactly hot…and was completely non-existent in America…a place with great sales potential.
Or so reasoned Carolus Nolet Sr., the tenth-generation head of the Nolet distillery (and still head today). Carolus traveled to California in the early 1980s to sniff out the market–and saw the crazy rise of vodka all around him. The bells went off. He has a distillery, among the finest in the world.
The huge windmill at Nolet
He has grain (winter wheat was his choice). Yes, jenever production can continue, to satisfy the Dutch consumer…but why not use the old Nolet facility to distill vodka?
And thus Ketel One Vodka was born. Notice that the numeral 1–still used for Ketel 1 Jenever–became “One,” now used for Ketel One Vodka. Other nifty decisions followed. For example, Carolus asked his oldest son, Carl, to move to the U.S. and head up the American marketing for Ketel One Vodka. He did, raised a family in southern California…and created one rip-roaring success for the Ketel One brand.
A museum at prosperous Nolet
Here are the most recent stats I could find on vodka market share in the U.S. You can see that Ketel One came out of nowhere to grab the #4 spot in America by 2010:
As you can see, the brands above include their flavored vodkas. I must say that the Ketel One flavored vodkas–Ketel One Citroen (with a combo of citrus fruits) and Ketel One Orange (with Mandarin oranges from Spain, Italy and Brazil)–are the finest infused vodkas I’ve tasted.
But what about the mainline product, Ketel One Vodka itself? I must confess, I’m not a huge vodka fan. To me, it’s not like judging wine–where you look for flavor. To me, judging vodka is looking for no flavor, which is what it usually has! So I look for those vodkas, which cause me the least pain, least alcohol burn.
At the distillery in Schiedam, they poured a blind vodka tasting–Ketel One vs. some of its most famous competitors. Sure enough, the one ultimately identified as Ketel One was the lightest and crispest and best balanced of all. I have now developed the habit of keeping a Ketel One Vodka bottle in the freezer, and pouring myself a quick, frosty shot whenever I need to nurse my wounds after warfare!
And the distant ancestor, jenever? If you’re looking into the subject, remember that it has morphed. Once upon a time, it was made only from malt, and had lots of juniper flavor. But around 1900, new distilling techniques with grain enabled the Dutch to create a newer, lighter style of jenever, known as jonge, which contains only a little malt. This is what I brought back from Holland–Ketel 1, of course!–and have been enjoying for its round richness. But it is not a juniper powerhouse. There are artisanal producers all over Holland playing with jenever styles, and my next trip there will certainly include a jenever hunt.
The bad news is: you won’t be able to start your hunt here. The stuff is not imported (though there is one producer of jenever in Canada).
The good news: you get to go to Holland!…which is glorious! See my coverage soon in this space of Holland and its gastronomic glories…
