Must Have Malts Buys Most of Hooghoudt’s Final Whisky Casks

After the permanent closure of Hooghoudt, the 137-year-old Dutch distillery, the retailer Must Have Malts has bought 314 of the site’s remaining 587 whisky casks, in a move that will keep part of the brand’s final stock together rather than letting it be broken up and sold off in smaller lots.

The casks were released to auction in January by La Martiniquaise-Benelux, the brand owner, after La Martiniquaise-Bardinet said last year that production at Hooghoudt would end at the close of 2025 and move to its distillery in Ghent, Belgium. Hooghoudt had been made in Groningen since 1889. NTG Logistics, which specializes in bonded storage for high-value spirits, is handling the casks.

Must Have Malts, an online retailer and wholesaler based in Utrecht that focuses on rare and limited whiskies, said it bought more than 53% of the remaining stock as part of a long-term plan to manage and release the distillery’s last grain whisky casks over time. The company said it wanted to prevent what it saw as an important piece of Dutch whisky history from being dispersed without a trace.

The acquired casks hold single grain whisky aged from three to 29 years and matured in oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherry casks. According to the company, if the oldest cask were bottled now, it would produce the oldest Dutch whisky ever released. The stock has been stored in an unusually dry warehouse, where nearly half the original liquid has evaporated over three decades. In some cases, alcohol strength has risen by more than 15 percentage points.

That level of evaporation is unusual in northern Europe and more often associated with hotter or drier aging conditions in places such as Kentucky or India. Billy Walker, a veteran whisky maker who selected the oldest casks for Hooghoudt’s maturation program in the 1990s, later tasted samples and described the spirit as powerful and distinctive. He also said it still needed more time because the dry storage had reduced some of the depth expected from such long aging.

On his recommendation, Must Have Malts plans a controlled finishing trial of six to 12 months in fresh American oak to restore balance and roundness before any release. Walker will then assess the results again. Under regulatory rules, the Hooghoudt name will not be used commercially on future bottlings, though their origin will be disclosed within legal limits.