A farm on the Lys that became a distillery.

Filliers is a genever distillery at Bachte-Maria-Leerne, a village that is now part of Deinze in East Flanders, Belgium. The company dates its story to 1869, when, it says, Karel Lodewijk Filliers bought land there for a farm, and it says it still distils on that same site. In 1880, according to the company’s history, the second generation, Kamiel Filliers, installed a steam engine and the business received its distilling licence. Dutch Wikipedia also names Kamiel as the man who obtained the licence, around 1880, to distil genever on the farm, while a 2023 company news item credits the licence to Karel Lodewijk. Grain left over in winter was turned into genever and sold, the company says, to the inns of Bachte.

The third generation, Firmin Filliers, led the business between the two world wars. In 1928, the company says, he developed a gin recipe that became the basis of today’s Filliers Dry Gin 28. During the Second World War, the company says, the family hid the copper still by throwing it into a side branch of the river Lys; Dutch Wikipedia records that it was recovered after the war and distilling resumed.

The fourth generation, the brothers Louis and Carlos Filliers, moved the company towards grain genever in the 1960s, phasing out the farm and taking on contract distilling, and began experimenting with barrel ageing in 1967, according to the company. In 1970 Filliers launched its first advocaat, an egg liqueur made to a recipe by Julia Denecker, Firmin’s wife. Dutch Wikipedia says the original distillery buildings have been on the Flemish heritage inventory since 1991, and that in 1996 a five-metre copper column was rebuilt on the site as a monument, designed by the architect Xavier Donck.

Genever first, then gin and whisky.

From the 1980s the fifth generation, the cousins Jan and Bernard Filliers, ran the distillery. The company credits Jan with its first fruit genevers in 1986 and with a range of cream genevers — chocolate, vanilla, coconut and banana among them — in 1998. Dutch Wikipedia adds that Filliers also supplies moutwijn, the malt spirit at the heart of genever, in bulk to other producers in the Benelux and Canada, among them Bols.

The range widened through purchases and new spirits. In 2006 Filliers bought Van Hoorebeke, a distillery founded in Eeklo, and in 2009 it bought Wortegemsen, a lemon-flavoured genever; Dutch Wikipedia, citing De Standaard of January 2009, says the brand was bought from Albert Kint of Waregem. In 2007 the company launched Goldlys, a whisky matured in American oak bourbon barrels, whose name, Dutch Wikipedia says, refers to the nearby Leie, or Lys. A rye whisky followed in 2016 under the Sunken Still brand.

In 2018 Filliers introduced a Barrel Aged range, from a young cocktail genever to a 21-year-old, deliberately spelling it “Genever” with a G to stress, the company says, the degree of innovation. The same year it installed two new copper pot stills and now says it unites three distilleries on one site; it scaled up single malt whisky production in 2019 and presented five- and eight-year-old Filliers Rye whiskies in 2023.

The gin rests on Firmin’s recipe. The company says the 28 in Filliers Dry Gin 28 refers both to 1928 and to the number of herbs and fruits in the blend. Sources differ on when it reached the market — 2010, according to Dutch Wikipedia, or 2012, according to the company. A 2014 release from the glassmaker O-I said only half a bottle of the original test distillate had been saved, which was enough for Filliers to reproduce it.

Genever and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all genever names from the Netherlands and Belgium: Rutte, Nolet, Wenneker, Hooghoudt, Filliers, Zuidam and A. van Wees. Genever — also spelled jenever — is the juniper-flavoured spirit of the Low Countries, traditionally distilled from malt wine (moutwijn), and English Wikipedia says modern gin derives from the historical genevers introduced to Great Britain.

The name is protected. English Wikipedia says the European Union protects genever as a geographical indication, with eleven specific types, which may be made only in the Netherlands and Belgium and in small neighbouring areas of France and Germany. The best-known distinction is between jonge (young) and oude (old) genever, which refers to the recipe rather than to age: under the rules Wikipedia summarises, jonge genever may contain no more than 15 per cent malt wine, oude genever at least 15 per cent, and korenwijn between 51 and 70 per cent.

The craft itself has heritage status in the Netherlands. In September 2016 the Dutch Centre for Intangible Heritage, KIEN, added fijndistillatie — fine distillation, in which, KIEN says, genever is distilled from purchased malt wine with juniper berries and herbs — to the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage.

Genever has its own geography. English Wikipedia names Schiedam, Groningen, Amsterdam and Delft in the Netherlands, and Hasselt, Deinze, Aalst and Liège in Belgium, among the towns known for it, and the brands here are spread across both countries rather than gathered in one place. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its genever is distilled and how its bottles and labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A pharmacy bottle, revived.

The gin’s bottle is the best-documented part of Filliers’ visual identity. In 2014 the glassmaker O-I (Owens-Illinois) announced that it had designed a new bottle for Dry Gin 28. Because gin was then regarded as a medicinal drink, O-I said, the 1928 gin had been sold in a pharmaceutical bottle, and Filliers wanted a relaunch bottle that closely resembled that historical glass. The new brown bottle kept a flat base and straight shoulders — shoulders are usually rounded for pressure relief and stacking, O-I noted — and replaced the old glass stopper with a cork in a flat head. Patrick Waegemakers of O-I Benelux called the result a streamlined bottle with a “no label look.” O-I said the brown bottles were made in Rinteln and the clear ones, used for the brand’s other gins, in Holzminden, both in Germany, and that the two companies had worked together on glass packaging for more than twenty years. Bernard Filliers, then chief executive, said the bottle had to keep the gin’s authentic nature while still looking modern and distinctive on the shelf.

The family line has had breaks. Bernard Filliers ran the business until he retired in early 2018, the company says, and no member of the family worked in it again until 2023. In late September 2023 Jan’s son Benoit Filliers, the sixth generation, succeeded Filip Waelkens as master distiller and production director, and in October 2025 he became chief executive, succeeding Marie Thiers after seven years of external leadership, RetailDetail reported. The company describes itself as a family business and says its spirits are still made where it began.

For a design guide, Filliers shows how a revived bottle shape can carry a recipe’s date into a modern brand. Compare Bols, which Dutch Wikipedia lists among the buyers of Filliers moutwijn, and Zuidam, a family distillery across the border in Baarle-Nassau. For this guide we use amber, copper and a river green with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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