Spirits · Chicago, Illinois

KOVAL

Organic grain-to-bottle spirits from Chicago's first distillery since the 1800s.

Founded: 2008
Founded by: Robert Birnecker, Sonat Birnecker Hart
Based in: Chicago, Illinois

Their story

KOVAL is run by husband and wife Robert Birnecker and Sonat Birnecker Hart. Robert grew up helping at his grandparents' distillery and winery in Austria, and Sonat gave up a tenured professorship to move home to Chicago and start something of their own.

They opened KOVAL in 2008, the first distillery to operate in Chicago since the mid-1800s. The name means "smith" in several Eastern European languages and, in Yiddish, suggests someone who forges ahead, a nod to family on both sides.

Beyond their own whiskeys, gins and liqueurs, the pair have become teachers to the craft distilling movement, helping set up hundreds of small distilleries across the country.

How it's made

All grain comes from organic farms in the Midwest and is milled, mashed, distilled, aged and bottled on site. Robert keeps only the "heart" of each run, a technique borrowed from European fruit brandy, using a German-built copper pot still. Whiskey ages in new American oak barrels from Minnesota, and every product is certified organic and kosher.