Two Gävle-based entrepreneurs, Steven Kautzky Andersson and Catherine Engelbrekt, are opening a gin and vodka distillery in a historic 19th-century building on Alderholmen, according to local reports. The pair, who founded their company BrandStar in 2012, have been producing gin and vodka for several years but are now establishing their own production facility on home ground.
The distillery is being built in a warehouse from the 1870s on Skeppsbron, where alcohol was once sold to sailors on anchored boats. Steven Kautzky Andersson, a well-known musician and entrepreneur in Gävle, presented the business idea to Catherine Engelbrekt in 2012. Engelbrekt, a business developer who previously worked at H&M and helped establish parts of the company in Europe, became immediately interested in the plans.
"We burn for the craft," the colleagues said in a statement. "We wanted to create something that is genuine and authentic and should be consumed in moderation," added Steven Kautzky Andersson.
We should not be like any other distillery, not be a copy, we should be us
Until now, the pair have developed their own recipes for drinks that were then produced in other distilleries in Sweden. Currently, BrandStar has several gin and vodka varieties, both aged and unaged, in Systembolaget's ordering range and at about 20 restaurants and bars in Sweden.
The distillery with kitchen, laboratory, bar counter and specially built distillation pan of 230 liters will be built during the spring with the ambition to start production already during early summer. Initially, they will only have two employees - Catherine Engelbrekt and Steven Kautzky Andersson themselves - and hire temporary staff as needed.
Catherine Engelbrekt emphasized the importance of standing out during a new establishment: "Otherwise you have no market. We should not be like any other distillery, not be a copy, we should be us. We should take advantage of the traditional, but also do it in a new way."