In 1995, Thomas Kersten came across a big surprise in the old farm records of the Stockinggut. actually more by chance a big surprise: During a research in the course of a reconstruction at the Stockinggut one found old edicts. Barely legible, we took them and had them checked by the state archivist. examine them. Among some other servitudes not yet known to us servitudes, he found out that the Stockinggut owns the oldest and largest private distilling right in Austria. There was nothing to indicate that the previous owners had distilled schnapps at the farm, so the surprise was quite big. Maria Theresa, the Empress of Habsburg, had granted these distilling rights, to give the large farmers the possibility to legally distil schnapps and, of course, to collect a tax for it. Until today we as landowners are allowed to use the distilling right from the empress. That was the starting signal that Tom Kersten founded Stockis Mountaindestillerie and started distilling schnapps!
