Fruit grower and distiller Hermann Becker closely examines the thermometer sitting atop his stainless steel still, and then carefully tastes the clear fluid trickling steadily out of the pipe at the bottom. It's pear schnapps, and after two years stored in Becker's cellar, the traditional German drink will be ready for sale.

"We also have apple, mirabelle plum, greengage plum, nut and apricot schnapps," Becker explained, pointing to the tasting bottles lined up on a shelf before turning his attention back to his steaming still.

Becker's small farm lies on the outskirts of the tiny village of Weiler in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg - the heartland of Germany's schnapps tradition. Of 33,000 licensed small - scale distillers in the country, a staggering 30,000 are located in Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Like most of the other distillers in the state, Becker's family has a long history of producing schnapps; his father was a master distiller and his grandfather had a liqueur factory.

"One kind of a still or another has been burning here for generations," said Becker.

Schnapps production in the region was kick-started back in 1726 when the then Bishop of Strasbourg decreed his subjects could make spirits from their own fruit. The practice of planting small stands of fruit to turn into schnapps quickly spread throughout the fertile and sunny corner of south-western Germany where most of the distillers are found today.

But this schnapps tradition is endangered.

Uncertain future

In 2003, the European Commission ruled that Germany's spirits monopoly, which subsidizes spirit distillers to the tune of 80 million euros a year, is in breach of European free market regulations and has to be phased out by the end of 2010.

"If this ends up coming into effect, the vast majority of micro-distilleries won't be able to keep producing," said Klaus Lindenmann, the CEO of the Baden Small-scale and Fruit Distillers Association.

The state spirits monopoly pays above market prices for raw alcohol of agricultural origin - an important source of income for many of the traditional distillers in south-west Germany who find it to make ends meet because of the tiny size of their fruit farms.

The German government has until the end of 2009 to lodge an application for an exemption to the Commission's ruling, and in an unlikely alliance, environmentalists are strongly lobbying alongside distillers for the spirits subsidies to continue.

This is because many of the distillers cultivate a traditional type of fruit orchard that is not only among the most ecologically diverse habitats in Europe, it is also among the most endangered.

Vital habitat

Trees in traditional fruit orchards are widely spaced and high-growing to allow animals to graze under and around them, or for hay to be grown on the same site.

This half-sunny habitat is important for many insects, birds and small mammals, such as the little owl and the edible dormouse.

"Up to 5,000 plant and animal species have been documented in traditional orchards," said Hans-Martin Flinspach, the chairperson of the Streuobstinitiative, an initiative to save traditional meadows around the town of Karlsruhe.

Traditional orchards make particularly good habitats because they are planted with a mix of fruit varieties that have adapted to the local conditions over hundreds of years - meaning the orchards need few or no chemicals.

And they aren't just valuable as a habitat and source of food; traditional orchards are also an enormous gene reservoir. In Germany, there are an estimated 1,700 types of apples, 800 types of pears, 400 types of plums and 400 types of cherries.

Not economically viable

But this spread-out structure and mix of fruit means harvesting traditional orchards is labour intensive and costly - one of the main reasons why this habitat is rapidly disappearing. It's estimated that in the last 50 years, three-quarters of traditional orchards in Germany have been cleared.

With 116,000 hectares, the largest remaining stands of traditional orchards in the country are in Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Environmentalists fear if the spirits monopoly is phased out completely, this valuable habitat will disappear too.

"The spirits monopoly is vitally important because it's the only way to make the orchards economically valuable," said Flinspach. "And the aim of this economic sustainability is much more about species protection, preservation of the landscape, climate protection and soil conservation than agriculture."

The German government has said it will push for a seven-year extension for the spirits monopoly.

"We are very optimistic," said Member of European Parliament for Baden-Wuerttemberg, Daniel Caspary.

Caspary believes, however, that Germany's distillers would be better served by applying for a permanent exception to allow the spirits monopoly to continue.

"We have other parts of the EU where there are exceptions for member states," he said, pointing out that Sweden gained an exemption to an EU ban on snus after successfully arguing that the popular sucking tobacco was part of the country's cultural heritage.

"Distillation is also part of our cultural heritage," Caspary said


Author: Kate Hairsine
Editor: Andreas Illmer