Berckmans Spirits

There are world-famous Belgians, real and fictional, whose names are immediately evocative of their genre. ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ is a series created by the Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, known as Hergé. And then there’s the inimitable Hercule Poirot, the fictional Belgian detective created by the English, Agatha Christie. But, until recently, how many of us knew of the Belgian Berckmans family and their contributions to Georgia as the ‘Peach State’?

In 1850, the 20-year old Prosper Jules Alphonse Berckmans journeyed in search of the American Dream, settling in Augusta, Georgia, where the climate and soil qualities could realize his aspirations as a horticulturist. Rapidly, Prosper’s nursery business took off, gaining a reputation as the ‘Father of Peach Culture’.

Berckmans’ ‘Fruitland Nurseries’ became the largest peach farm in the South, and thus inspired the unique American Vodka brand of ‘Berckmans’, a delicious, distinctive spirit, distilled 6 times from American grain and then filtered and purified through Georgia Peach pits. The Berckmans’ heritage has been further enhanced by the ‘Fruitland Augusta’ Georgia Peach Vodka and Peach Tea Vodka, always made with fresh Georgia peaches.