Welcome to DSM, Deutsche Spirituosen Manufaktur... in Berlin.
What is the history of DSM?
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 art director for over ten years before starting DSM. It does not come at a surpise when one sees 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. And, in the entrance area, on a black wall: the history of distillation from picking the ingredients to distilling to bottling. 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. 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. |
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 items that exist in different formats and forms (brandies, distillate, spray...). Just going through the book they made to describe them all is like reading a poem.
They did more than 500 distillations and trials before ending up with almost 80 products they are happy with.
What Spiritsfully liked about the way they handle their work:
1/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. There is no idea to scale up the fastest possible.
2/They work with local products first and outsource the closest they can most of their raw products.
3/Their products contain neither added sugar nor artificial flavours.
4/And last but not least, they thought about waste. Nothing is trown away and alcohol and distillation leftovers are transformed into energy.
5/Something I heard and like very much during our conversation: "our 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. When distillery joins poetry...