Pienaar & Son launch Waskis, their new vodka range

23 May 2017

After launching about six months ago, carving out a niche in the premium gin market, Pienaar & Son are diversifying their offering with Waskis - their take on typical vodka. I attended the launch of the Waskis vodka at their distillery in the heart of Cape Town on Thursday, 18 May.

Waskis vodka

The event saw 50 guests sample the first batch and the reception was excellent. I must admit the taste is really something special. Very unpretentious, with well-balanced flavours and quite delightful when it hits the tongue the first time. I spoke to Andre Pienaar, co-founder of Pienaar & Son and asked him to tell us more about Waskis and the distilling process.

Tell us more about the distillery, Pienaar & Son.
Pienaar & Son launched in December 2016 and we launched with two gins, the Empire and the Orient. The business is run by me and my dad, he is takes care of the technical side of things and I focus more on the creative side of the business. The easiest way that I usually explain it to people is that he made the stove and I am the chef. We have been here for six or seven months doing the gin and slowly but surely started working on the vodka. And now we launched the vodka, it is called Waskis.

Pienaar & Son launch Waskis, their new vodka range

Congratulations! What made you want to create a vodka?
Our distilling techniques are very much based on cutting edge, engineering principles. I try to stay away from the pretentiousness that is always present in the premium alcohol you find in the liquor stores. So, we go straight from fermentation to 96.4% vodka spirit in one go. I wanted to do the vodka to really extend the brand family and it was a nice target to hit to really understand our equipment a bit better but I have slowly fallen in love with vodka. There is nowhere to hide with vodka. Vodka is such a pure spirit you can't add anything to it. So, whatever the yeast created in the fermentation, you can try to distil it and try to select what was created but you can't add anything. And so, I feel there's a lot more skill involved, more craft to it. I feel there's more pride there.

Any exciting plans in the pipeline?
We doing Kamers/Makers at the Castle of Good Hope this week and then we're also doing the Good Food and Wine Show afterwards. Then I am hopefully taking a well-deserved honeymoon break and then we'll come back in the summer when the season hits and do a lot of gin and tonic festivals. Long term goal is to eventually do some whiskies. Hopefully towards the end of the year we will start barrelling it, which means by 2020/2021 we can be here again and be launching a whisky.

Where can get our hands on a bottle?
It's available on our online shop and is also on sale at Norman Goodfellow stores, independent retailers and selected Spar outlets going forward.

For information or to view their website, click here.