A jenever distillery, and a family that stayed.

NOLET’S is the gin of the Nolet family’s distillery in Schiedam, the distilling town beside Rotterdam, and the family business behind it is far older than the gin. The company says Joannes Nolet founded the first Nolet jenever distillery in Schiedam in 1691, and that the firm has been “onafgebroken in handen van de familie Nolet” — continuously in the hands of the Nolet family — for eleven generations. The gin’s own website repeats the date: “Since 1691, when Joannes Nolet founded his distillery in Schiedam, Holland, members of the Nolet family have been perfecting the craft.” The company now calls itself the Nolet Family Distillery.

The company’s history is told generation by generation. It says Jacobus Nolet bought shares in De Star, a Schiedam grain mill, to secure the distillery’s grain; that Cornelis Nolet, a distiller who later became mayor of Schiedam, built the Nolethuis on the Lange Haven; and that a later Joannes Nolet built a distillery in Baltimore for American customers, which Prohibition forced to close. Dutch Wikipedia adds a Rotterdam branch of the story: Hubertus-Sigismundus Nolet co-founded the distillery and liqueur firm Blankenheym & Nolet with Carolus Jacobus Blankenheym, and the Blankenheym brand was later bought by Lucas Bols, in 1970.

The family’s vodka, Ketel One, launched in the United States in 1983 and is covered in our Ketel One guide. This guide is about the rest of the house: its jenever, its gin and the family that makes them. One landmark stands over the site: the company says Molen De Nolet, a 43-metre windmill completed in 2005, generates electricity rather than grinding grain. Dutch Wikipedia reports that in May 2016 the mayor of Schiedam announced that the company could use the title Koninklijk, or Royal.

KETEL 1 in 1977, NOLET’S in 2010.

Before the gin came the jenever. The company dates KETEL 1 Original to 1977, and its brand list now includes a KETEL 1 Signature Blend and, from 2024, a limited KETEL 1 Signature Blend Rum Cask Finish. The company also lists Proosje van Schiedam, at 30 per cent alcohol.

The gin is the house’s newest line. The company says the NOLET’S gins were presented in 2010. The brand’s website says the eleventh-generation sons, Carl Jr. and Bob Nolet, “collaborated with their father Carolus Sr. to create NOLET’S Silver,” and that the father, Carolus — whom the company calls Carel Nolet Sr. and the current owner — represents the tenth generation. It names three signature botanicals for NOLET’S Silver: rose, peach and raspberry. The Los Angeles drinks blog Thirsty in LA, writing in January 2011, described them as Turkish rose, white peach and raspberry, and reported that the gin had launched in the United States in 2010 in a limited release across six states. The company gives its strength as 47.6 per cent.

The second gin is rarer. The website calls NOLET’S Reserve “the personal creation of Carolus Nolet, Sr.,” and names saffron and verbena among its botanicals. Its bottles, the brand says, are “individually numbered by hand” and allocated each year, and are sold in a presentation box. Thirsty in LA wrote that Carl Nolet Sr. had worked on the Reserve recipe for about four decades.

The same generation has carried the house into other products. The company says Carel Jr. and Bob Nolet introduced Ketel One Botanical in 2018, a line made with the vodka.

Design 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 family tree on the bottle.

The NOLET’S bottle makes the family its subject. Thirsty in LA reported in January 2011 that the bottle “references history throughout its design,” with a shape recalling older bottles, the Nolet family tree etched into its sides and a heavy cap bearing the family crest, and that the launch had been held back until Carl Nolet Sr. was satisfied with the bottle design. The name itself is set in capitals, NOLET’S, across the company’s own brand list.

The family has also become an owner of other Dutch spirits names. Just Drinks reported on 9 October 2023 that the Nolet Group, already a shareholder in Lucas Bols since its stock-market listing in 2015, had agreed a recommended offer for the Amsterdam liqueur and genever house, and that Bols would keep its name, its brands and its Amsterdam office as a separate company within the group. A joint press release from Nolet and Lucas Bols on 21 February 2024 said Nolet’s offer vehicle, HollandsGlorie B.V., would hold about three-quarters of the shares. Nolet has held a controlling stake in Bols since February 2024; our Bols guide covers that house. The vodka follows a separate route: the same Just Drinks report described Nolet’s 50-50 joint venture with Diageo for Ketel One as unchanged.

At home the family has changed how its jenever and gin reach Dutch bars and shops. On 31 March 2026 the company announced that Maxxium Nederland would become the distributor of KETEL 1 Jenever and NOLET’S Gin to wholesalers, with Bob Nolet, of the eleventh generation, describing jenever as deeply rooted in Dutch culture. The company describes its distillery as standing in the heart of Schiedam.

For a design guide, NOLET’S shows how a gin launched in 2010 can borrow three centuries of authority by putting a family tree on the glass. Compare Ketel One, the family’s copper-pot-still vodka, and Bols, the Amsterdam house it now controls. For this guide we use a damask rose, a silver and a bottle ink with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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