Standing in front of an elegant neoclassical villa in Kaulsdorf, a few red brick warehouses lined up behind it, there’s not much to hint at the fact that these are the headquarters of one of Germany’s most iconic liquor companies. Impressive real estate, sure, but where’s the booze? If you’ve ever been to a Berlin club, camped out at a music festival or browsed through the Duty Free at BER, you’ve probably come across Berliner Luft and its unmistakable turquoise logo. Despite a 72-year history, however, it was only over the last decade that the smooth peppermint liqueur, produced by family-owned spirits company Schilkin, became a firm staple of Berlin’s nightlife.
Managing director Erlfried Baatz, who joined Schilkin in 2015, has overseen the company’s rapid expansion over the last 10 years. “Berliner Luft is not just an integral part of the party scene in our capital anymore, but in many cities around the world,” he says. As of today, Schilkin exports its liqueur and spirits to more than 10 different countries. Seventy-five percent of those sales are down to Berliner Luft.
Schilkin produces between 200,000 and 400,000 bottles of the sweet peppermint liqueur per week.
The popularity of the minty booze, especially among younger people, doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. It’s reasonably strong (but doesn’t taste like it) and it’s the next best thing to a toothbrush when you want to get rid of your coffee breath before going on a date. Depending on the size of the bottle – ranging from a handy 200-millilitre to a weird-flex-but-okay three-litre size – Schilkin produces somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 bottles of the sweet peppermint liqueur per week. Despite such scale, most of the production is still done by hand, on the same East Berlin estate where company founder Apollon Schilkin opened up shop almost 100 years ago. “We have only slightly altered the recipe over the decades,” Baatz says. “But the production process has always stayed the same.”
From Russia with l uft
The story of Berlin’s most famous liqueur begins about 1,300km away from Schilkin’s Marzahn headquarters. As company lore goes, the up-and-coming Russian businessman Apollon Fjodorowitsch Schilkin launched his first spirits distillery in Saint Petersburg around 1900, earning himself a name among the locals and eventually supplying Tsar Nicholas II with some of his favourite vodka. After fleeing the country for Germany during the communist revolution (a time when close ties to the Tsar didn’t exactly boost one’s life expectancy), the Schilkins settled on a picturesque estate on the eastern outskirts of Berlin – the same location where Berliner Luft is still being produced today.
As soon as the Iron Curtain descended over East Germany, alcohol sales began to skyrocket.
In 1932, with Hitler’s power rising and the end of the Weimar Republic looming, the family opened production on the new site. While quickly garnering attention for their authentic Russian vodka, it wasn’t until after the war, in 1952, that the first-ever batch of peppermint liqueur was produced in the now-East German factory. Berliner Luft took its name from a 1904 operetta song by composer Paul Lincke – a popular drinking tune at the time and tribute to the city’s untamed spirit of freedom and sexual liberation.
Somewhat ironically, the same year that the first bottles of freedom-ringing Berliner Luft were shipped out of the Schilkin distillery, the new DDR government began fencing in its East German territories – to keep pesky Westerners out and, more importantly, to keep its own dissatisfied citizens in.
What neither communists in the East nor capitalists in the West anticipated, however, was the fact that as soon as the Iron Curtain descended over East Germany, alcohol sales in the new authoritarian state began to skyrocket.
Boozy resistance
Stefan Wolle, scientific director at the DDR Museum in Mitte, has been researching life in East Germany for more than three decades. According to the historian, there are differing explanations for the extensive drinking culture emerging in Soviet-controlled Ostdeutschland. Perhaps most importantly, alcohol – be it beer, schnapps, or peppermint liqueur – played a significant role in reinventing community under the new Orwellian regime.
“Drinking became an expression of collectivity”, Wolle explains. “The idea was: if you drink together, you stick together. Once you had gotten drunk with a colleague or friend, you could also do business together, share your actual thoughts with them, or simply tell a risky political joke the government shouldn’t find out about.”
“Drinking became an expression of collectivity. The idea was: if you drink together, you stick together.
While often quite fond of the bottle themselves (Berlin’s infamous chief of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Konrad Naumann, allegedly invited a whole ballet troupe to get sloshed with him once), most party officials publicly rejected the overindulgence of their constituents. After all, Wolle explains, excessive drinking didn’t exactly match the ideal of the so-called “socialist personality” – fit, healthy, hard-working and always ready to debate an evil capitalist on the merits of Marxism-Leninism.
Although most regulations regarding alcohol in the DDR weren’t necessarily stricter than today, the state-imposed cultural narrative of the “sober socialist” still backfired on the government. Especially members of the army and the police – for whom alcohol was strictly prohibited – increasingly saw drinking on the job as an act of “non-political resistance”, Wolle says.
Conformists drank the Kool-Aid, rebels preferred liquor. The historian, who was drafted into the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA) as a young man himself, remembers just how obsessed some of his comrades got with the idea of getting tipsy on company time: “It might sound silly, but sneaking out at night, climbing over the barrack walls and then showing up drunk and unshaven in the morning was their way of defying the regime – though, admittedly, not a very intellectual one.”
But there was also a darker side to this era of quiet resistance and free-flowing booze. “Many people also used alcohol as a coping mechanism”, Wolle explains. “The constant surveillance, the fact that you had to behave differently at work than you would at home… some people just couldn’t take it anymore.” In 1988, the average DDR citizen consumed a whopping 16.1 litres of hard liquor per year – about twice as much as their neighbours in the West.
It wasn’t until after the Mauerfall that the family regained control over their production site in Kaulsdorf, with then-75-year-old Sergei taking over his father’s company for a second time. During the slow process of reunification, however – an economically devastating time for many East German companies – business began to dwindle. When managing director Erlfried Baatz joined Schilkin in 2015, the company was close to bankruptcy.
A little bit of glitter
Under the joint management of Baatz and Apollon Schilkin’s great-grandson Patrick Mier, who had joined the family business in 2001, Berliner Luft underwent some radical changes. Leaning heavily into the historic Lincke tune, the booze was supposed to become a symbol for joy and sexual liberation again. From its first ‘Glitter Edition’ (with actual glitter mixed into the bottle) to a ‘Kinky Queen’ and a ‘Diversity’ version, Schilkin managed to make its peppermint booze synonymous with Berlin’s “constantly evolving and open-minded spirit”, as Baatz puts it.
Though ultimately less politically driven than it might appear, the strategy worked.
Even the anti-woke backlash to some of the more progressive ad campaigns of the last years seems to have been part of the plan. “We are always happy when our ideas spark conversations and discourse,” Baatz says. Though ultimately less politically driven than it might appear, the strategy worked. Within a few years, the rebranding of Berliner Luft had saved the Schilkins from bankruptcy and attracted an almost obsessive cult following among Berliners. It’s not at all rare these days to visit your local Freibad and spot a slightly faded tattoo of a bottle of “Berliner Luft” on someone’s rear end.
After a century of tumultuous company history, the Schilkins have found their recipe for success. The formula for their silky-smooth peppermint liqueur, however, remains under wraps. “It’s an original recipe developed by the company” is all the managing director will divulge. Alright then, keep your secrets – and we’ll keep ordering a round of shots.
