Benedikt Graduates as a Distiller

By 2020, Benedikt Blomendahl had gone from bottling his first wine at nine years old to graduating as a distiller. The formal qualification only confirmed what the stills already knew.

What came before the certificate

He filled his first 55 litre whisky barrel in 2019. He was running 800 bottle production runs of gin, which is the same commercial minimum we quote clients today, so he learned the economics and the craft on the same batch. And he was co-developing gin recipes with his father, including the Blomendahl and Roxi's recipes that went on to collect Double Gold and Platinum.

Why we mark it

Because distilling is one of the few crafts where the qualification genuinely follows the work rather than preceding it. You cannot learn where to make the cuts from a book. Anyone can heat a wash; knowing exactly when to stop collecting is the difference between a spirit that wins medals and one that gives people headaches. That judgement is taught hands-on, at the still, and it takes years.

It is also the teaching method we use with clients. When we set up a distillery, training happens at the still, not in a slide deck, which is exactly how the Ghana project ran.

Four years later, in 2024, the CIBD confirmed him as the world's youngest Master Distiller. More about Benedikt, or come and learn at the B Academy.