The future in reviving historic brands

You want to create a whiskey company. How do you go about it? I mean beyond the spirit itself. What’s the story? What’s the brand? 

There’s a few different directions you go. You could root the narrative in the place where the whiskey will be made. Maybe you’re starting a family company and could communicate that. It’s got to be something genuine, or today’s consumers will see right through it. 

So, instead of creating a whole new story, you could write a new chapter in one that’s already been told. 

The spirits industry is full of brands and companies lost to the ravages of time and market forces, but in these historic brands, there’s a wealth of heritage and culture ready to be engaged with. Where there’s history, there’s a story. And inspiration for future creations. 

Origen X Group – reviver of historic brands

Meet Swiss spirits company Origen X Group. It describes itself as “Being in the business of acquiring heritage assets and rebuilding some of the world’s oldest and historic premium and luxury brands”. 

The first was Kinahan’s Irish Whiskey, then Ukrainian vodka Mikolasch. Haitian rum brand Bouvil is in the process of being brought back, while talks with an old family in Mexico to acquire a Tequila brand are ongoing. 

Each brand can trace its history back more than 100 years. In researching the history of Mikolasch, the group believes it has found the world’s oldest vodka brand. Kinahan’s dates back to 1779. 

The legacy of these brands is what attracted Origen X founder, Zak Oganian, and, in turn, he aims to build a legacy project with each. 

“The plan is to look and focus on what will be most valuable in 30 years, not pursuing short-term trends of 3-5 years. To ascertain what will be valuable, we work backwards and look at what we know will not be valuable. For example: Consumers will not want less transparent products, less authentic products, less quality, less character, less accessibility, less value added and less innovation in products. It is increasingly clear that consumers will want more authentic products with genuinely fascinating backgrounds, sources and stories, at the most affordable price. This is the goal we work towards”.

Oganian says the aim is to be custodians, not simply brand collectors. 

“Brand collecting is a strictly commercial enterprise that focuses on numbers, revenue and “the opportunity” and not on the market value of each brand. Every brand has a purpose, a vision, a plan and ultimately its market value,” he explains. This isn’t just about building a brand and then selling it to a drinks giant. It’s not a pump-and-dump model. “We want to set up an infrastructure for the brands so that we can ensure they can evolve with generations to come, so they can exist in the next 200 years. We strongly believe this is possible as there are many precedents and this is our core vision”.

Kinahan’s – one of the oldest whiskey brands in the world

Origen X Group acquired Kinahan’s LL Irish Whiskey in 2014, nearly a century since its last bottles were sold. It might not be a name you’re familiar with, but that wouldn’t be the case if you were a whiskey fan in the 19th century. 

The brand, which predates Jameson Distillery by a year, was founded on Trinity Street in Dublin in 1779 by Daniel Kinhan. He was something of a pioneer of the Irish whiskey category, acquiring vaults at Hamilton Row, Dublin to store casks and mature whiskey, which as a practice was in its infancy. Kinahan’s was one of the first whiskey brands to make and export only matured whiskeys. 

In 1819 the company, then known as Kinahan’s Son & Smyth, moved into the Carlisle Building, a four-story headquarters at the corner of Burgh Quay and D’Olier Street. In his chapter, Kinahan’s LL: A Forgotten Dublin Whisky, Jack Kinahan writes in Dublin Historical Record (Vol. 60, No. 2, Autumn, 2007)  that the company’s storage and bottling arrangements were enthusiastically described. “Over the door to the board room (in D’Olier St) may be observed a Crown and LL, the distinctive title of the world-renowned whisky which has rendered the name of Kinahan so famous, huge vats of which will be in the cellars underneath…” 

Kinahan’s – loved by royalty and bartending pioneers alike

Kinahan’s boasted the love of some very powerful people just decades after its launch. In 1807, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (the head of state), Charles Lennox, was so taken by Kinahan’s whiskeys that he ordered all stocks at the Kinahan’s Dublin vaults to be taken exclusively for his private use, marking each cask with “L.L.”. That name stuck. 

Queen Victoria too was amused, awarding Kinahan’s a Royal Warrant in 1845, meaning the whisky producer would supply its goods to the British Royal Family. She renewed that warrant and so did her son, King Edward VII. The likes of Johnnie Walker and Gordon & MacPhail have been granted Royal Warrants too, to demonstrate the kind of level we’re talking about here.

It wasn’t just the ruling classes who took to Kinahan’s though. We know that Jerry Thomas, dubbed “the father of American mixology”, was a fan too. In his 1862 “Guide on How to Mix Drinks”, Kinahan’s is featured in one of his book’s recipes. 

During this time, Kinahan’s became one of the first brands to be trademarked in response to unscrupulous merchants and publicans trading on its name with inferior products. In 1863, a case against grocer William Bolton of Dublin’s Westmoreland Street led to the Irish Courts granting an injunction to restrain others from invading the Kinahan’s L.L. mark.

The restoration of Kinahan’s Irish whiskey

As anyone who knows their Irish whiskey history will understand, the good times didn’t last. Not only was there war, economic strife, tariffs, tax, temperance, and the rise of blended Scotch whisky to contend with, but the brand never really recovered from the loss of the influential George Kinahan when he died in 1903. 

By June 1911, Kinahan’s business operations were transferred to Dublin wine and spirit enterprise Bagot & Hutton, which distributed Kinahan’s L.L. whiskey up until the time of Prohibition in the United States in 1920. In November 1920, the two spirit houses combined and were registered as Bagot Hutton & Kinahan. While this arrangement continued until October 1988, the Kinahan brand which had found the favour of royalty and American socialites was unfortunately lost. Origen X have bottled the odd Bagot whiskey too. 

When Oganian took over Kinahan’s, his approach was to try and innovate with cask maturation to honour the legacy of the brand. He was motivated to look at the effect of wood on whiskey, the way it is treated, how it interacts with the spirit, and how this changes over time. “Older whiskey is not always the better whiskey and age doesn’t necessarily contribute to maturity of flavour,” it reads on Kinahan’s website.

There’s also a detailed breakdown of the five different types of compounds wood contributes to whiskey: Cellulose, Hemicellulose, Lignins, Tannins, and Lactones, as well as the importance of toasting and charring. Oganian explains, “Different types of wood will pass on differing amounts of these compounds. For example, French oak (of Quercus robur species) contains a higher quantity of tannins than other oak types and delivers cooked apple-like fragrances. American white oak (of Quercus alba species) contains a lot more vanillin and lactones”.

This thinking led to the creation of The Kasc Project in 2019. Described as the world’s first series of whiskeys made in hybrid casks, these casks are individually constructed from five different types of wood: Portuguese oak, French oak, American oak, Hungarian oak and Chestnut (Irish regulations allow maturation in “wood such as oak”). These hybrid casks mix and match staves from different types and origins of trees, a process with a higher cost and labour intensity, but one that gives the brand a point of difference. 

Mikolasch Vodka – the oldest vodka brand in the world

In 2021, Origen X Group acquired the Mikolasch Vodka brand. Oganian was interested in pursuing a Ukranian vodka as the country wasn’t represented by a giant international brand but was rich in vodka-making heritage. He hired a Ukranian agency to conduct comprehensive research on the brand and it pulled together a remarkable report. Even Oganian couldn’t imagine what they would uncover. 

They found the brand could be traced back to father-son duo Piotr and Juliusz Mikolasch in 1842. Given the oldest vodka brand in the world is generally considered to be Smirnoff, which traces its origins back to 1864 in Moscow, Russia, that makes Mikolasch the oldest vodka brand in the world. It’s quite a claim, although Oganian himself isn’t too interested in the headlines. “It’s not our USP, it’s a cherry on top”. He does speak passionately though about its history as an innovator. He tells me it was part of the first wave of vodkas to actually be bottled, as before that vodkas were sold in canisters or jars as a commodity, not as part of a brand.

We know an awful lot about Mikolasch now because of the study Oganian commissioned, a move that shows how seriously he takes these restorations. The report comprised an analysis of distilleries operating on the territory of modern Ukraine from 1837 to 1939. The team secured its information from open sources (media, blogs, thematic sites), market reviews, scientific and reference literature (monographs, dissertations, collections); work with archives and museums, expert interviews, fieldwork… Institutions such as the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in both Kyiv and Lviv were harvested of all relevant information. It considered the geo-political status of the time period, the different words for distilleries and vodkas, and the culture of drinking across Ukraine, Russia, and beyond. It’s one of the most comprehensive brand-led investigations I’ve seen in the drinks industry and its findings are fascinating. 

The findings of Mikolasch Vodka’s international report

According to the report, in western Ukraine, alcohol consumption was culturally significant, with an emphasis on taste and variety, leading producers to offer flavoured drinks in aesthetically appealing bottles with creative advertising. In the Russian Empire, drinking was often a utilitarian activity, with vodka primarily consumed on draft in drinking establishments to “warm up” during colder seasons. Branding often centred on the name of the manufacturing plant, incorporating either the founder’s name or the location, with unique drink names more common in Polish and Austro-Hungarian areas. In the Russian Empire, vodka production was heavily regulated, and producers, like the Ukrainian Tereshchenko brothers, often downplayed their alcohol involvement, focusing on other ventures like sugar refining.

In the mid-19th century, Lviv emerged as a hub of the region’s alcohol industry. Juliusz Mikolasch’s plant was one of the notable producers. He was from a wealthy family, the heir to the Golden Star pharmacy business founded by his father Piotr Mikolasch. Piotr had already made a considerable contribution to the world by employing Ignacy Łukasiewicz on 15 August 1848. While oil was prevalent in the region, it was used as an animal drug or lubricant, but Łukasiewicz, John Zeh and Mikolasch were the first to distil the liquid to exploit it for lighting. Łukasiewicz is credited as the creator of the modern paraffin lamp in Lviv in 1853.

Before that, in 1842, the family finished construction on a modern distillery at a cost of 25,000 guilders. It was equipped with steam engines and advanced distillation equipment and by 1856 it was producing 200,000 bottles of vodka and liqueurs annually, distributed across Galicia, Moravia, the Czech Republic, Berlin, Italy, and Romania. The distillery’s 1877 Participation in the Lviv exhibition was recorded by writer Agathon Hiller (1831–1887), who told of a rich kiosk depicting numerous medals received at various exhibitions. By 1893, Mikolasch was being drunk by Tsars and even supplied the Pope’s court.

Despite this success, the distillery was sold to Jacob Sprecher in 1894 and immediately afterwards the plant burned down. The new owner rebuilt it and transformed it into the First Galician Joint Stock Company of Alcohol Production. Nationalised by the Soviets in 1933, the distillery ceased independent operation, and its legacy faded under state control.

The modern Mikolasch Vodka

Origen X helped revive the brand with the help of Fabrica Mikolasch, who now distils and bottles vodka bearing the family name in a distillery in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk. The process it uses to make vodka now is inspired by Piotr Mikolasch, an innovator in distillation (for medicinal uses) who discovered that farmland and grain origin, or what we might call terroir today, was key to both the quality of grain and the final distillate.

The modern Mikolasch Vodka is a single-farm Ukrainian vodka made from traceable farmed organic corn and pure well water. The seasons’ climate and harvest, and even the farmer’s names are listed on each bottle. It launched in the autumn of this year and was the best-selling spirit on Master of Malt during its first week. I’ve tried it and enjoyed it very much. It’s creamy, bright, has personality, and makes a good Martini. That’ll do for me. 

I understand that Mikolasch is also reviewing proposals to support organisations operating in agricultural education in Ukraine and is seeking to speak to NGOs and charities working in this field. All good things for a vodka that is very much looking forward as much as it respects what came before. 

The future in reviving historic brands

In the world of spirits, building a brand requires more than just producing a good drink. Origen X Group is trying to nurture legacies that resonate with today’s consumers. Story, heritage, authenticity… these can’t just be buzzwords anymore. You have to do the work, demonstrate there’s life to be renewed in these forgotten archives and a good purpose for doing so. By adding new chapters to these stories, Origen X is making its mark while showcasing an important past.

It’s a compelling approach. It isn’t the first to do it and it won’t be the last, but Origen X has demonstrated there is so much to learn from our drinks past. It begs the question – which other remarkable names and stories have been buried in the weight of history? What can we learn from them? What other historic brands can be restored, and can we create today from that history? 

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