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125 Years August Ernst – The Film

The August Ernst company stands for 125 years of experience and success in the spirits market. In 1898 master distiller August Ernst founded the distillery named after him in Bad Oldesloe. The house specialties, Oldesloer Korn and Oldesloer Kümmel, will soon find friends in the near and far. Today, August Ernst GmbH & Co. KG offers enjoyable products from the world of spirits under the brand names Oldesloer, Greizer, Specht, Meeraner, Romanza Amaretto, Stern-Marke, Holborn, Zinnaer Klosterbruder and Scharlachberg.

  History

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  • 1800 DE

  • 1825

  • 1850

  • 1898 EN

    Master distiller August Ernst founds the grain distillery named after him in Bad Oldesloe. The specialties of the house, Oldesloer Korn and Oldesloer Kümmel, soon find friends in the near and far surroundings.

  • 1948 EN

    On the occasion of the company’s 50th anniversary, August Ernst hands over the distillery to his son Richard Ernst, who considerably expands the sales area in the following years. The main customer is the catering trade, but the first contacts are already made with food and specialist wholesalers.

  • 1964 EN

    Harald Ernst joins the management of the company in the third generation and lays the foundation for a continuous upward development of the Oldesloer Korn products with a consistent market and brand policy. The operational processes were also made much easier by advanced assembly line technology.

  • 1971 EN

    In order to ensure the company’s success to date and its ability to deliver in the future, it acquires a 16,000 sqm plot of land in the industrial area of Bad Oldesloe and builds a new plant with 5,500 sqm of floor space.

  • 1973 EN

    On the occasion of the 75th anniversary, the anniversary bottling Oldesloer founder brand is offered in the premium equipment to a larger circle of users, after he was accessible as a private brand only a few until now.

  • 1978 EN

    To expand the distilling capacity, the August Ernst company acquires the Erkelenzer Kornbrennerei GmbH and increases the distilling rights in Bad Oldesloe and Erkelenz through additional purchases.

  • 1979 EN

    The company premises in Bad Oldesloe are expanded to 22,000 square meters, and the construction of a new finished goods warehouse increases the usable floor space to 7,000 square meters.

  • 1980 EN

    August Ernst takes over the Specht fruit distillery and increases the bottling capacity by using new equipment.

  • 1986 EN

    The tank capacity in Bad Oldesloe is expanded to 1.2 million liters and in Leutenbach to 900,000 liters.

  • 1988 EN

    August Ernst takes advantage of the trend for low-gravity spirits and relaunches “Die Fruchtigen von Oldesloer”.

  • 1989 EN

    In the course of the construction of a new distillery for the merger of the Oldesloer and Erkelenz distilleries, the tank farm at August Ernst was expanded to over 1.5 million liters. At Specht, too, the sharp rise in sales necessitated an expansion of the tank farm capacity to 1.2 million liters.

  • 1990 EN

    The new distillery in Bad Oldesloe – one of the largest and most modern – is completed.

  • 1992 EN

    August Ernst buys the well-known East German spirits producer “Meeraner Spirituosen und Weinkellerei GmbH” in Meerane/Saxony with the branch “Greizer Likörfabrik und Kräuterbrennerei” in Greiz/Thuringia.

  • 1993 EN

    Thomas Ernst joins the management of the group of companies as the fourth generation.

  • 1996 EN

    Due to capacity bottlenecks in the rented premises in Leutenbach, large parts of the distillery and bottling Specht are outsourced to Meerane.

  • 1998 EN

    The August Ernst company celebrates its 100th birthday.

  • 2000 EN

    The website august-ernst.de is published

  • 2003 EN

    Oldesloer Weizenkorn is the best-selling grain brand in Germany for the first time.
    Greizer Blue Curacao and Meeraner Mocca Edel are market leaders in their segments in eastern Germany.

  • 2004 EN

    The equipment of the Oldesloer Fruchtigen is revised.

  • 2005 EN

    The equipment of the Greizer Liqeure will be redesigned.

  • 2010 EN

    New product: “Oldesloer Blue Ice” Icemint fresh’n’cool

  • 2011 EN

    The exterior of the administration building in Bad Oldesloe is extensively modernized.
    In a difficult competitive environment, Oldesloer Weizenkorn 0.7 l asserts itself as market leader and also receives the “DLG Gold Medal” again due to its outstanding quality.
    New product: Oldesloer Weizenkorn & Cola 10.3% vol 0.25 l can

  • 2014 EN

    New products: Specht apricot brandy 0.5 l, Oldesloer wheat grain 3.0 l, Oldesloer Fruchtige 3.0 l (in the varieties: woodruff, sour cherry, blue ice)

  • 2019 EN

    Acquisition of the brands: Romanza Amaretto, Zinnaer Klosterbruder, Scharlachberg, Stern-Marke and Holborn.

  • 2023 EN

    The August Ernst company celebrates its 125th anniversary.

The distillery

Legally grain brandies can only be made from rye, wheat, barley, oats or buckwheat using the whole grain. Korn may only be produced in those areas of the EC where German is an official language and where this drink is traditionally produced.

The grains are ground wet to a fine grist. The resulting grist is made into a paste with approx. 3 – 4 times the amount of water and, after adding malt, heated to approx. 75 – 80°C, then cooled and yeast is added. By adding malt or enzymes, the starch contained in the grain is broken down over two phases into malt sugar or glucose. This is necessary because the yeast is not able to convert starch directly into alcohol.

The Story of the Wind Water Grain of Wheat

Anyone in the gastronomy of the Kornland Schleswig-Holstein who is looking for a good, cool Korn will always find an Oldesloer almost everywhere. Because he always stays the way he is, he has gained more and more confidence every year. And that for over 100 years. No wonder Oldesloer Korn can count on millions of loyal friends. Anyone who has tried it knows why.

Korn is called Schnaps in the colloquial language. But by no means every schnapps and every Klare is a Korn. Because corn really has to be made of corn. With us from wheat grain. The art of distilling made its way from Arabic to Europe in the Middle Ages, was refined by alchemists and captured the spirits of nature in bottles, where they promised healing powers and enjoyment at the same time. The vernacular coined the recipe that has become famous: Schnaps is good for cholera.

1507 Kornbrand in the north of Germany is on record for the first time. Flemish grain distillers flee from Duke Alba to Germany and bring their trade with them. 1879 saw the big upswing. Phylloxera, imported from America, is destroying European wine cultures. Cognac and brandy are becoming scarce, but the desire for spirits remains. Korn jumps into the breach and delivers what he promises. Since 1884, Bismarck’s laws have promoted grain distilling in small farms. The condition is that the residue, the protein-rich stillage, is fed to their own cattle and the nutrient-rich dung is plowed under on their own land.

1898 August Ernst, master distiller and farmer, founds a corn distillery with attached farm in Oldesloe.

Contact

August Ernst GmbH & Co. KG
Industriestrasse 27/29 • 23843 Bad Oldesloe
Tel: 04531-807-0
E-Mail: info@august-ernst.de


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