Edelbrennerei Dirker

Arno Josef Dirker is 45 years old and originates from Moembris, a little town outside of Aschaffenburg. In a little while he rose to become one of the most successful distillers in Germany. His homeland is unmistakably Franconia, his family has been living there since the 17th century, as assumably an Icelandic sailor named Dirker had grounded in that area and fathered six misbegotten children. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been forest officials – he first learned the trade of carpentry. Since his family, however, owns a large meadow with 700 apple trees, he discovered his passion for cider. The impulsion of his career was caused by a different fruit from the family plantation though: In 1986 they had a plentiful crop of Damson plums. Dirker brought the surplus to a friend who was a distiller. From that time on he steadily brought him fruit for fruit brandy, helped doing work in his distillery and along the way learned the details on how to make fruit brandy. He created his first fruit brandy, a fruit brandy of wild berries, in that very distillery. ´I mixed up everything from blackberries to raspberries – all the berries I had.´ Dirker acquired his own distillation license and distillery in 1992.

Author: Caroline Porsiel