Swiss Absinthe Distillers Have Trouble Meeting Demand

Since Kuebler was introduced to the US market, demand for this high quality absinthe has out striped production. This was reported by Yves Kuebler recently.

``We cannot cope with demand -- we're planning to triple our production capacity to more than 1 million liters a year,'' Yves Kuebler, head of Switzerland's biggest absinthe company Blackmint, said in a telephone interview. Kuebler said ``with the help of the Swiss embassy in Washington,'' his absinthe company managed to convince the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow the drink in the U.S.

Nearly 90% of the absinthe produced in Switzerland is exported. Roughly 60% of this amount is destined to end up on the US market. This is quite a jump and exports have more than quadrupled over the past six months, driven by a surge in demand from US absinthe drinkers.

This highlights the cottage industry of absinthe distilling in Switzerland. Absinthe distilling was once banned in this alpine country. This ban was removed in 2005 and since then, the Swiss absinthe industry hasn’t looked back.

Exports of Swiss absinthe reached 140,000 liters over the first six months of 2008 compared with 30,000 liters in the second half of last year and less than 6,000 liters in the first half of 2007, according to Swiss Alcohol Board statistics released recently.

Apart from the US, Swiss absinthe distillers mainly export the drink to the rest of Europe with France and Germany taking the lion’s share.

Considering that the US market hasn’t even been open for a full year now, Swiss absinthe producers are very optimistic for the future. This optimism is sure to spread to the absinthe drinkers in the USA as additional Swiss absinthes are released on the market.