After a long search, Manu & Sofie decided in 2010 to buy an old fruit farm in Pepingen, the heart of Pajottenland, the ‘Huygens’ farm as it was popularly known. It started with some apples and many pears, but due to the boycott of European fruit from Russia, a solution had to be found. Why let all that beautiful fruit go to waste? Why not distill eau-de-vie from it?
From the fields and orchards of our beautiful Pajottenland
to vodka jenever gin pastis and... single malt whisky
Why not start a real farm distillery where we truly make spirits from what grows around us, short chain, tradition, family, craftsmanship, and the constant pursuit of perfection? That’s what De Cort is all about. From the first drop that ever ran from a still in 2014 to every bottle that still leaves our farm today. No aromas, no additives, only real raw materials, real herbs, fully distilled…
IT ALL starts at the farm
In 2010, Manu & Sofie decided to buy an old fruit farm in Pepingen.
The charm of the old buildings, the orchards, …
a new step in their lives.
A dream of starting a real distillery began to ripen.
2013: Purchase of first second-hand Holstein still
At the end of 2013, Manu, together with his friend Dirk Van Peteghem, bought his first Holstein still in Luxembourg. Holstein is pretty much the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of stills. The foundation for the pure and smooth spirits they want to create.
An old greenhouse provides shelter for the first distillery. The roof is beautiful but too low for the still. So, they had to break up the floor and lower it by a meter.
2014: The first distillery
2014 was a year of much experimentation: eau-de-vie from the fruit around the orchard. That was the initial plan, due to Russia’s boycott of European fruit.
And Manu & Sofie couldn’t stand the thought of all that fruit just hanging there.
And that’s how potato scraps from a local chip factory were also upcycled.
2015: Ground Control is born
On April 1, 2015 (no joke), they launched their first potato vodka: Boum Patat, and the first gins under the name Ground Control.
Gins where the alcohol is made from a different raw material each time: wheat, corn, apples, and potatoes…
The control of the raw material, a vision that still remains the foundation a decade later.
2017: new old building and 2 additional stills
The greenhouse becomes too small when 2 additional Holstein stills are added. An old shed is dismantled in Halle and reassembled in Pepingen.
Production can keep up with demand again and the distillation of new make whisky is also ramped up now that there is more capacity.
2020: COVID
Covid and the accompanying lockdown hit hard. No visitors, no sales in hospitality… To contribute our part to society, we started producing disinfectant alcohol… liters and liters without ever asking for a single euro.
The letters we received from the healthcare heroes thanking us brought us great joy.
2021: From Ground Control to De Cort
After a legal conflict with our brand name, we had to look for a new brand name for the distillery.
Our now grown-up children suggested using our family name: De Cort.
We are a family business, so that name is more than logical. The name does not come from ‘korten drank’.
2021: New Holstein Stills
We were hitting the limits of our old stills. To distill even finer, purer, and smoother spirits, new stills were a necessity.
In 2019, just before the corona crisis, we decided to have new Holstein stills custom-made.
In hindsight, a very wise decision, but it was a tense time back then.
By mid-2021, they were ready for installation. A 5000-liter still with a whisky helmet and a smaller 650-liter gin and vodka still.
2022: Move to number 20
The site at number 28 became too small, and when our neighbors decided to retire, this was our chance to grow further.
We are moving to the old farmers’ union site in Pepingen; it couldn’t be more symbolic.
Now we can get even closer to our goal of having every step from field to bottle entirely in our hands.
2023: The first lambic brewed on our alembic
For the production of whisky, we first brew a type of beer. So why not brew (real) beer too? Not a pilsner or tripel, but the regional beer: lambic. And we like to put an ‘A’ in front of it.
Because as a distillery, we can actually do that in an alembic… which is where the beer’s name comes from. It requires some adjustments to our setup, but those are challenges we gladly take on. Project A’lambik is born.
2025: Start-up of the malt house
Short chain, or as we say ‘Corte keten’… all very nice, but to brew beer from barley, we first need to malt that barley.
But if there’s no malt house in Belgium willing/able to process small batches, then we have to have it malted at least 300 km away. And that, of course, clashes with the short chain concept… One solution then presented itself: to do the malting ourselves. A project we’ve been working on for years, but which is finally taking definitive shape in 2025.
