From a Bonn living room to Germany's best-selling gin brand
Raphael Vollmar and Gerald Koenen have known each other for over 25 years. In 2014, they turned a whim into reality: with just 4,000 euros in starting capital, they founded Rheinland Distillers GmbH in Bonn — enough for the trademark registration and an initial batch of 200 bottles. What followed was growth that surprised the founders themselves. Since its inception, the company has seen double-digit growth every year and is now one of Germany's highest-revenue gin producers.
Vollmar and Koenen found the name for their distillate in their immediate home: the Nibelungen saga takes place right on their doorstep — at the Drachenfels near Bonn, where the legendary hero Siegfried is said to have finished off the dragon and bathed in its blood. A linden leaf that fell onto his back during this process became his undoing. Since then, the linden leaf has been the connecting symbol between myth and distillate.
Craftsmanship, botanicals, and the linden blossom as a guiding principle
The recipe for Siegfried Rheinland Dry Gin was developed over the course of about a year together with distiller P.J. Schütz from the Eifel Distillery. The result: a gin made from 18 botanicals, flavored in small batches. The lead botanical is the linden blossom — not just as a reference to the saga, but as a flavor backbone that gives the gin a soft, floral depth. Complementary notes include juniper, bitter orange, thyme, cardamom, lavender, ginger, and angelica root.
The approach of producing quality through craftsmanship rather than defining it by alcohol content is not a marketing promise at Rheinland Distillers, but a business model: “We firmly believe that you cannot determine the quality of a drink by its alcohol content.” In 2018, the Bonn-based company became the first established spirits brand in the world to launch an alcohol-free alternative under the same umbrella brand — Siegfried Wonderleaf. This uses exactly the same 18 botanicals as the alcoholic original. Diageo later came on board as a minority investor through its start-up program, Distill Ventures; Vollmar and Koenen retain the majority and management of the company.
A portfolio between classic Dry Gin and alcohol-free avant-garde
At the heart of the range is the Siegfried Rheinland Dry Gin (41% ABV) — juniper-forward, with integrated citrus notes and the characteristic soft-floral finish of the linden blossom. It has won numerous international awards, including Double Gold at the World Spirits Award 2015 and Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. The range is complemented by the Siegfried Easy line as a ready-to-drink format in classic and fruity versions, as well as by the Siegfried Wonderleaf and Wonderleaf Rosé — both alcohol-free, both built on the same botanical framework as the classic gin. So, for anyone wanting to switch between a gin and tonic and an alcohol-free long drink in one evening, the taste experience remains within the same world at Rheinland Distillers.
