Import duties, a Berlin factory and a first bottle in February 1924.

Malteserkreuz is a German aquavit with a Danish parent. In the 1920s Danish aquavit had found a following in Berlin, but import duties made it ever more expensive to bring in. German Wikipedia says the duties made importing Aalborg Akvavit into Germany almost impossible, so its maker, A/S Danske Spritfabrikker — the Danish Distillers group — began producing an aquavit in Berlin instead. The first bottle left the Berlin factory on 18 February 1924, German Wikipedia says, citing Getränke-News.

The trade site about-drinks.com told the same story in February 2019, when the brand turned 95. As duties climbed, it reported, the Danish parent set up its own production site in Berlin in 1924 at great speed; a sample of the first batch went to Denmark to be checked, and once it was approved, permission followed to market the aquavit under the name Malteserkreuz from Charlottenburg, the district in the west of the city.

The recipe stayed Danish. about-drinks.com describes it as made to a Danish formula from finely filtered alcohol and distilled crystal clear, and in 2024 the same site described Malteserkreuz as a German classic distilled with caraway to a Danish recipe.

The name and mark come from the eight-pointed Maltese cross. A schnapps glass in the collection of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, dated by the museum to between 1950 and 2007, shows how long the device has served the brand: its back is printed with a white eight-pointed cross on a red ground above the words “Malteserkreuz Aquavit.” The cross also brought legal work. German Wikipedia records a trademark dispute over the eight-pointed cross with the brewers Stuttgarter Hofbräu and Brauerei Bischofshof, settled in 2006, citing Lebensmittel Zeitung.

From Berlin to Buxtehude, then to Denmark and Norway.

Production did not stay in Berlin. German Wikipedia says the aquavit was made in Buxtehude, near Hamburg, from 1972 to 2011. After that plant closed in mid-2011, production moved to Aalborg in Denmark, the home of the Danish Distillers group, and in May 2015 it moved again, to Hagan in Nittedal, Norway. English Wikipedia’s article on Arcus records the same step from the Danish side: the Aalborg factory closed in April 2015 and production of the Aalborg brands was moved to Norway.

The range has been tried and pared back. German Wikipedia lists Malteserkreuz No. 2, a golden aquavit made in Denmark and launched in 1999 for the brand’s 75th anniversary, which was dropped in 2009, and Malteser Bitter, sold in a black bottle from 2007 and discontinued in 2010; the same taste is sold in Denmark as 1-Enkelt. The core product is the clear aquavit that has carried the name since 1924.

Advertising made the brand a familiar German voice. German Wikipedia names a 1989 campaign with the actor Günter Strack and a 2003 campaign with Manfred Krug, Iris Berben, Britta von Lojewski and Christoph M. Ohrt, created by the agency FCB Wilkens, formerly Wilkens Ayer. The line attached to the brand was “Man gönnt sich ja sonst nichts” — roughly, “it’s not as if you treat yourself to anything else.”

Anniversaries have been the occasion for design. For the 95th birthday in 2019, about-drinks.com reported a limited Berlin Edition whose label borrowed from 1920s designs, finished with a sweeping script lettering and set in silver and white, accented with what the report called the typical Malteserkreuz red.

Design and documentation.

The six brands in this group are spirits from northern and eastern Europe: Gammel Dansk, Malteserkreuz, Explorer, Purity, Luksusowa and Khortytsa. They span three kinds of drink — aquavit, a bitter and vodka — and spirits brands of this kind sit at many different points in the trade, from names that still carry a founder’s signature to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a state-run shop to a duty-free shelf.

A spirits brand’s identity is usually carried less by the liquid than by a bottle, a label and the place or story it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the town where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its spirit is actually distilled and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirit is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From Danish Distillers to Vin & Sprit, Pernod Ricard, Arcus and Anora.

The brand’s owners changed with its Danish parent. German Wikipedia says that in 2001 distribution of the Danish Distillers brands in Germany passed to Maxxium Deutschland, a joint venture founded in 1999 by Rémy Cointreau, Beam, Edrington and Vin & Sprit; in April 2003 the Berlin company became V&S Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of the Swedish Vin & Sprit. When Pernod Ricard bought Vin & Sprit, German distribution moved to Pernod Ricard Deutschland in 2009.

Pernod Ricard did not keep the aquavits. On 13 July 2012 BeverageDaily reported that it was selling Aalborg, Brøndums, Malteserkreuz Aquavit and the Danish bitter Gammel Dansk, together with the Aalborg production plant, to the Norwegian Arcus-Gruppen, whose own leading aquavit was Linie. Arcus’s communications manager told the paper the deal was about “getting aquavit moving again” by developing strong Nordic brands. From 1 January 2013, German Wikipedia says, the importer Eggers & Franke handled the brand in Germany.

Arcus has owned Malteserkreuz since 2012, and through Arcus it is now part of Anora Group. English Wikipedia says the merger of Arcus with Finland’s Altia was finalised on 1 September 2021, creating a company headquartered in Helsinki. In June 2024 about-drinks.com and Just Drinks reported that the Underberg group’s Diversa Spezialitäten, with its on-trade team TeamSpirit, had taken over German sales of Anora’s aquavits — Linie, Malteserkreuz and Aalborg Jubiläums — and Gammel Dansk. about-drinks.com said Anora had run a German office since 2022.

For a design guide, Malteserkreuz shows how a single device — a white cross on red — can carry a product across a century, four owners and several distilleries while the name and recipe stay put. Compare Aalborg, its Danish sibling, and Linie, its Norwegian stablemate under the same owner. For this guide we use cross red, white and silver with a display serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Malteserkreuz’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.