Bols | The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails

, the leading Dutch spirits company, is known for its genevers and for its wide range of liqueurs. Based in Amsterdam, it can trace its documented history there at least back to 1640, when Pieter Jacobz Bulsius was registered as arriving in the city. He was the son of a family named Bulsius, Bultius, or Bulsies who had fled political unrest in their home in what was then the Netherlands region of northern Flanders (modern-day Belgium) to resettle near Cologne, Germany. (The Bols firm publicize the date “1575” and “Lucas Bols,” but the only known evidence from 1575 is a request to the Cologne Protestant synod by a local congregation of Belgian refugees, which probably included a widow named Bulsius/Bultius/Bulsies, to clarify if brewing and distilling from grain was allowed by religious law.)Pieter simplified his name to “Bols” and, after apprenticing with a renowned distiller, built a prosperous company. The first known Lucas Bols was born in Amsterdam in 1652. The company fell into a decline after the family lost control in the early 1800s. The firm was sold to financier Gabriel van ’t Wout in 1813, who rejuvenated it by focusing on exports and concentrating on the production of quality liqueurs instead of just the jenever and simpler “alcoholic waters” it had begun with. Production moved out of Amsterdam in 1964 and has since been almost entirely outsourced. Although the Bols name is on a wide range of spirits such as vodka, gin, and brandy, the majority of its income derives from Bols-range liqueurs. Most Bols-brand liqueurs are produced either in the Netherlands or (in a similar bottle and label but with a significantly different liquid, aroma, and flavor) under license by Brown-Forman in the United States. In 2008, the company, Dutch-owned once more after years of foreign ownership, reinvigorated the jenever category with its launch of Bols Genever, a rich genever in the classic style aimed at craft cocktail bars.