DISTILLERY PROFILE
The Thy life
Lee ‘Connas’ Connor has been on Unfiltered duty everywhere from the West Coast of the United States to the rye fields of Finland to bring you the stories of the people behind some of the most interesting new wave of world whisky distilleries. This month, he’s been talking to Jakob Stjernholm from Demark’s Thy distillery to find out what makes them tick
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THY DISTILLERY
The roots of Thy distillery* lie firmly planted in the Gyrup family estate in the north-western corner of Denmark, an organic single estate farm that has been in the same family for eight generations. The initial notion of distilling there was nothing more than an experimental pastime.
“My father-in-law gets the credit for filling the first casks made here, back in 2010,” says current incumbent Jakob Stjernholm. “But to call what he was doing ‘commercial distilling’ would be a stretch. If anything, it was more of a grand hobby project. But the whole idea was experimentation. “Danish whisky wasn’t even a thing back then, even our friends at Stauning hadn’t released a bottle at that point. We were very much looking to find our own identity in distilling.”
GRAIN FIRST
If identity is grounded in our actions, then, naturally, the embryo of Thy’s personality lies in the field, not the distillery.
“We weren’t thinking about distilling as a business endeavour, we were simply curious about what happens when you make whisky out of the grain you grow yourself; maybe even do some experimentation in the field, maybe differ the types of barley away from modern varieties. Maybe even use some old Danish heritage varietals.
“Even when it comes to smoking the grain, what do we use? What do we smoke Danish bacon with? Beechwood! Let’s try that! We didn’t know if it was going to turn out like liquid bacon or whisky at the time!”
This elemental expanse of ideas, a very small batch and investigational approach, gradually escalated to a point where in 2015 Thy debuted their first whisky, a 300-bottle run that was only released locally. There followed a range of more experimental releases that they were happy with, and the feedback from the people buying it was overwhelmingly positive. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to elevate the project to a plateau somewhere above “hobbying”.
ABOVE: Thy distillery co-owners Jakob Stjernholm and Andreas Poulsen try a sample in the warehouse
PICTURED: Harvest time for the locally grown grain used at Thy distillery
ABOVE: Thy can create its own mash bills on site
A DIY APPROACH
“Field to Bottle” is a term we’re used to hearing in modern distilling, especially in the context of established distilleries in places like Scotland, Ireland and even the United States, who have adopted the approach of working with partners in the malting industry who can trace each individual grain back to the field in which it was grown.
Ten years ago in Denmark there was no such infrastructure. That meant it was necessary for Thy to outsource distilling operations for a time while their on-farm distillery was designed and delivered. And the lack of demand for whisky-centric production apparatus and expertise in the country at the time meant that they had to become their own problem solvers.
“We are farmers! And we knew that we wanted full control of what happened to our grain,” says Jakob. “We could have sourced ingredients or even our equipment from established overseas suppliers. But that felt like we’d end up with a copy of what’s already being done, as opposed to a truly unique Danish whisky.
“Our first major investment was inventing our own malt house. This is a design that incorporates three drums we use for both germination and for kilning, both with and without smoke. We can rotate when we need to, to keep airflow just right. As we use differing types of grain it gives us the ability to manually adjust timings where needed and gives us the flexibility to deliver our own bespoke mash bills on site.”
ABOVE: Jakob Stjernholm
ABOVE: Thy distillery concentrates on ‘traditional full-term maturation’ for its whiskies, usually in bourbon or sherry casks
ABOVE: Festival time in the courtyard at Thy distillery
FARMER'S FERMENTATION
Even with the expansion of distillery facilities on the farm, Thy still adheres to a relatively small-batch production with 250kg of malt per mash, producing a 1000 litre wash, which is then fermented over four to six days.
“We like to have a slow and controlled fermentation process, we like the result of that,” says Jakob. “We have no cooling on our fermenters or anything like that. It’s nice and calm, we could distil after four days to be honest, very little alcohol is produced after that.
“But the flavour mellows out nicely with those two extra days, and for me it keeps the focus on the flavour of the grain – which is the most important thing for a farmer!”
PRIME CUT
Perhaps the most off-the-wall characteristic employed at Thy is at the point of distillation. Where we may be accustomed in Scotland to double distillation in pot stills, or possibly single distillation in a column still, Thy have worked with a German manufacturer to develop a pot still that requires only one distillation from wash to spirit.
“It’s probably the oddest thing that we do,” says Jakob. “The still is very much a copper pot still, but it has two modifications that allow us to get spirit from one run of wash. Firstly, the line arm leads to an additional coil of copper piping that the liquid needs to climb up before it arrives at our second adjustment, a purifier. This means that we can set it up and adopt a long, slow distillation to strip out the exact flavour and texture we are looking for in one go. Everything is selected manually from there. If we manage to get two runs in one day, we’d get around one hogshead of spirit.”
LET THE SPIRIT TALK
As Thy are passionate about letting their grain lead the dance, they have chosen a maturation regime to complement, rather than overwhelm the spirit.
“We like to mature for full term in either bourbon or sherry casks, depending on what we think is a good match to the style of new-make we’re dealing with,” says Jakob. “Finishing isn’t really a fixed part of what we do. This doesn’t mean that all our whiskies will be either bourbon or sherry, we can vat different casks before we settle on a bottling. We’ve managed to source some older sherry oak recently that we really like, it’s not as aggressive and gives us a gentler maturation. There’s something very special about our beechwood-smoked spirit matured in old oloroso casks.
“We also use some new oak, specifically for our rye, we feel it works well. Overall, I guess you could call what we do ‘traditional full-term maturation’.”
PASSION PERSONIFIED
Jakob’s passion for distilling is infectious, and as the operation is fully self-funded he and his family have the perfect platform to showcase what can be done when responsibility for every part of the process lies at the feet of the maker. He can be rightfully proud of what they have achieved so far, not to mention the unexpected benefit of their malting facility providing other local brewers and distillers with the opportunity to do one-off small batches with their own speciality grains to their own specifications. Add to that, their altogether unique approach has engaged The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s Whisky Team to source single casks from Thy distillery. The first release in 2023, Cask No. 153.1: The darkness and the light was exclusively for Society members in Denmark, while Cask No. 153.2: Heal Thyself came out in 2024. Both were 5-year-olds, matured in first fill ex-oloroso barrels. In the UK and EU in March 2025, you’ll find Cask No. 153.3: Dynamical botanicals, a 7-year-old bottling that sits firmly in our Lightly Peated flavour profile with maturation in an ex-bourbon barrel.
* If you want to have a go at pronouncing Thy as someone from Denmark would say it, it sounds more like ‘tsuh’ (apparently)
ABOVE: Thy uses beechwood to smoke its malted barley, giving it a distinct character
PICTURED: The Thy team outside the distillery in north-western Denmark