Kothe Distilling Technologies was founded in 2008 by Sonat Birnecker Hart and Robert Birnecker. Buying a still is a major investment. We know first hand the trials and tribulations of gaining the kind of information and advice necessary to make an educated decision. When we decided to leave our academic jobs to bring my grandfathers distilling legacy to the United States we spent months assessing which still to buy. We wanted to get more information than we received in the United States. Since we are both fluent in German, and have family in the distilling business in Austria, we thought that we would expand our search to Germany and Austria to get a better understanding of still manufacturing from its source.

Distilling in Germany and Austria is much more common than in the United States and it is there that we attended trade shows for still manufactures and asked experienced and successful distillers about their stills. We found Kothe Destillationstechnik not only to have the highest quality and aesthetics but also to have the most knowledgeable team informing its production. We set out to buy the best still possible and now we want to offer others the chance to benefit from the wealth of knowledge the Kothe team brings to the development of a distillery—from concept to production.