What is bessenjenever?

Berry genever is made by flavouring genever with fruit or plant parts, or by adding fruit juice to it.

The product specification of fruit jenever describes the drink as jenever flavoured with fruit or plant, with parts of them, or with fruit juice.

The base is therefore ordinary jenever, with at least 1.5 percent malt wine in the pure alcohol volume. Which berry a distillery uses and in what proportion is not laid down in the file; that differs from house to house.

According to the product file, vruchtenjenever has at least 18 percent alcohol, considerably lower than the 30 percent that applies to ordinary jenever.

The dossier only gives a lower limit. What is actually in the bottle is stated on the distillery’s label.

For comparison: old jenever and young jenever start at 35 percent alcohol and korenwijn at 38 percent. A fruit jenever may therefore stay well below that.

The product specification for fruit jenever sets no maximum sugar content, unlike jenever and oude jenever, where 20 grams per litre is the limit.

For young jenever that limit is even lower, at 10 grams per litre.

Without a maximum, a berry jenever can be heavily sweetened. If you want to know how much sugar is in a particular bottle, the label or the distillery is the source.

Fruit jenever may be made in Belgium, the Netherlands and the German federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.

The decisive production steps must take place in that area. Diluting with water, bottling and packaging may take place elsewhere.

Vruchtenjenever is one of the five Dutch jenever files kept by the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland, alongside jenever, graanjenever, jonge jenever and oude jenever.

Young jenever is a separately registered type with its own limits: at least 35 percent alcohol, less than 15 percent malt wine and at most 10 grams of sugar per litre.

Fruit jenever builds on that: jenever as the base, then fruit, plant parts or fruit juice for flavour, and no upper limit on sugar.

The area also differs. Jonge jenever may only come from Belgium and the Netherlands, vruchtenjenever also from North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Both files are held by the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland.

In Bathmen, berry jenever is placed with the fruit drinks, close to the young and old jenevers on which most berry jenevers are based.

Anyone who wants to compare for themselves will find, in the same aisle, the young jenevers and grain jenevers that serve as the base.

Feel free to ask at the counter what has come in from which distillery. We do not sell spirits to people under 18 years of age.