Oude Molen Distillery

Location

The Oude Molen Distillery is located 68 km from Cape Town, just outside Grabouw, and forms part the Elgin Wine Region. The distillery is located on a 12.6 hectare property, which includes a dam fed by spring water directly from the Nuweberg Mountains. The building retains its rustic charm despite being part of a modern company, with some of the roofs of the maturation cellars still supported by the original gum poles that were put in place when the building was built in 1942.

The distillery has a visitor's centre, a tasting room and maturation cellars. The farm is located at 34°08’28" south 19°01’15″ east.

René Santhagens

The distillery was started by René van Eibergen Santhagens, born in Batavia in 1864 to wealthy Dutch parents. He was adventurer, explorer, cavalry officer and chemical engineer.

He became passionate about wine and brandy after a stay in France on the estate of the Marquis de Pellerin Latouche in Cognac. It was here that he fell in love with the Marquis' daughter, Jeanne de Pellerin de la Fouche, whom he later married.

In 1897, he answered an advertisement for a brandy maker in South Africa. Sammy Marks had obtained a concession from former President Paul Kruger to erect a distillery at 'Eerste Fabrieken'. To ensure production was top notch the distillery had advertised the position to cognac makers. Thus it was that Santhagens arrived on the goldfields of the Witwatersrand, laden with his own curvaceous alembic Charentairs copper pot stills with him from France. The distillery was a success, but production was halted during the English war, and abandoned in 1902 after the war when the concession was revoked by Lord Milner.

In 1903 he moved to Cape Town and shortly afterwards Jeanne, his wife-to-be, arrived with her father, the Marquis. By this time he had convinced most of the farmers of the area that his methods were superior. The Santhagens bought an old wine farm called Oude Molen in Stellenbosch, in the shadow of the Papegaaiberg. In time, the Santhagens revamped the simple, single storey tin-roofed house into a double-storey mansion with a thatched roof and gable. The fashionable couple became prominent figures in Stellenbosch and Cape society.

Oude Molen

At Oude Molen Santhagens started production of his light Hermitage and French brandies in 1910 and became the first man to make brandy in South Africa according to the age-old French traditions. His French motto read Touchant Toujours le But ("Always hitting the target"). His emblem was a shield depicting a parrot pierced by an arrow. Both the emblem and the motto still grace the original manor house in Stellenbosch and now also the Oude Molen distillery in Elgin.

The story behind the crest is less blood thirsty than it seems. Apparently, in times gone by, the citizens of Stellenbosch held an annual pageant in honour of their founder, Simon van der Stel. A feature of the pageant was a competition for marksmen. The target was a painted wooden parrot and the competition took place at the foot of the hill where the Oude Molen Manor House stood. This hill became known as the Papegaaiberg (Parrot Mountain).

Impact on industry

His commitment to the cognac method of distillation and maturation gained him a national reputation for superior brandy. Santhagens was instrumental in framing the legislation that became the Wine and Sprits Act of 1924, which promulgated criteria for brandy distillation, including permissible additives and fermentation processes. The clever businessman that he was, it so happened that at the time the Act came into effect, he was the only person whom had a supply of brandy which met all the criteria of the Act, and from this point there was no stopping him. After his death in 1937, his name lives on in the industry due to his influence on the industry: All copper pot stills in use are modelled on his, and through the act it became law in South Africa that all local brandy include only spirit distilled from grapes.

A new chapter

At the end of 2006, the Oude Molen distillery was moved to its present location at Grabouw. Urban expansion at its original site, and the fact that Madame Santhagens had sold the business, which she had continued to run for 10 years after her husband's death, led to the cessation of the distillery business there. Just as important was the fact that the Elgin Valley is well suited to brandy production, because of its cool and misty climate. The area was also becoming famous for the production of fine wines.

The current cellarmaster at Oude Molen, Dave Acker, had established a distillery there but it was only after the family-owned, Edward Snell Company, bought a controlling interest in the company that millions of rands were spent on upgrading the facility. Dave Acker is still a shareholder of the company.

Big Bertha and Long Tom

The distillery has the two biggest copper pot stills in South Africa. These copper pot stills are used to distil the Oude Molen 100 Reserve and VOV 14-year-old brandies.

Dave Acker calls them "the big guns in the brandy-distilling business" and believes that their large curved surfaces allow for greater condensation of alcohol vapours. This creates a purer distillate, which is a characteristic of the smoothness of the Oude Molen brandies.

Big Bertha holds 5,000 litres and recalls the massive gun used by the Germans to shell Paris during World War I. 'Long Tom', with its 19,000 litre capacity commemorates the cannon that was in action during the Siege of Mafeking in the South African War.

Oude Molen V.O.V Rare Vintage Selection

100% Potstill brandy

In 1910 Santhagens already produced VOV. It was the first Cape potstill brandy distilled and matured in the true cognac tradition. Today VOV is still created in this spirit of craftsmanship from the distillery’s finest 14 year old brandies.

Oude Molen René Single Cask – Cask 28/109

100% Potstill brandy

This single barrel, as indicated on the label, was cask no 109 of lot no 28. On average the lots in the ageing stores consist of 160 barrels per lot. The master blender tastes the brandy from the barrels before they are decanted and blended away into different blends of brandy.

Whenever he comes across an exceptionally different brandy he would put it aside for tasting by a panel, who would then make a decision on which barrel is good enough for the René Single Cask. All brandy’s starts off as a clear transparent spirit and all the ageing characters and the colour are imparted by the wood. The size of the barrel is determined by South African law to be not larger than 300 litres, which means that after losses there is on average only 602 bottles available for bottling from a barrel. This makes it one of the rarest brandies encountered in South Africa.

Oude Molen Solera Grand Reserve

100% Potstill brandy

The Solera system at Oude Molen is a three tier system consisting of 20 barrels in the bottom tier, 18 barrels in the middle tier and 16 barrels in the top tier. It takes six years to fill the complete system, starting off with aged brandy, with a minimum of 3 years, in the top tier.

Oude Molen only bottles out of the bottom tier. A maximum of 20% of the volume per barrel is bottled every 12 months. After bottling from the bottom tier, they refill the bottom tier from the middle tier and the middle tier from the top tier. This means that for the next 100 years the consistency of the brandy will be the same.

The first bottling from the Solera system has been awarded a gold medal for best in the class at the International Wine & Spirit Competition in London 2010.

Tourism

The Oude Molen website claims that tours are offered daily from Monday to Friday and that there is a gift shop, but as of December 2014 the Distillery is completely shut up.