In 1769, brandy merchants and brothers Johannes (1733-1804) and Pieter (1736-1819) De Kuyper, sons of Jan De Kuyper, purchased a distillery in Rotterdam. In time, they would become the biggest distillers in the city.

The De Kuyper brothers quickly expanded their business through the purchase of two existing distilleries and the construction of four new ones. Of the total seven distilleries they owned, five were situated on the River Baan in Rotterdam.

The brothers also had their own malting house to produce the malt needed for Genever. The ownership of their own malt house is indicative of the scale of their operation and their ambition, as the capacity of a single malting far exceeded the needs of an average distillery.

Later, in 1797, they took a further half-share in an additional malt mill known as de Arend – The Eagle.

At the end of the 1920s, following a decline in sales volumes, De Kuyper decided to tackle the Dutch market and made a start with the production of liqueurs. During the 1930s, De Kuyper made nearly twenty flavours of liqueurs, including apricot brandy, cherry brandy, triple sec, and creme de menthe. Shortly afterward, the Dutch government announced an excise increase on alcohol. In turn, this led to a decline in countrywide consumption.

Meanwhile, the US Prohibition hugely impacted alcohol supply and demand, but De Kuyper’s sales remained relatively stable. On the other hand, Prohibition made it harder to service export markets like Canada. In 1932, DeKuyper entered an agreement with Meagher Bros. & Co. for production and sales in Canada – allowing them to establish contacts in the US, in preparation for the end of Prohibition. A year later, in 1933, the company concluded an agreement with the National Distillers Products Corp. of New York, involving sales of DeKuyper products and the setting up of a joint production unit in New Jersey.

Decades later, executives at National Distillers were struggling with sagging sales on the heels of a wave of anti-alcohol sentiment and asked flavour scientist Earl LaRoe to develop a lighter, sweeter, lower-proof product. DeKuyper Peachtree Schnapps was inauspiciously released in the early fall of 1984. It was a tremendous success, giving De Kuyper a place among the fifteen best‑selling brands of spirits in the world.

In 1987, thanks in part to the success of Peachtree, Jim Beam bought National Distillers. DeKuyper was considered a ‘jewel’ and, to ensure the integrity of the products, a flavourist was brought over from the Netherlands to train the US flavour scientists. Win Wilkings was selected to carry on the DeKuyper tradition and trained the next generation of masters, setting up a legacy of innovation and quality before retiring after 40 years in the company.

DeKuyper’s foreign expansion began in 1932 in Montreal, Quebec in partnership with Meagher Bros. A year later, DeKuyper began manufacturing in a joint facility in New Jersey.

Then, in 1940, under the direction of National Distillers, DeKuyper cordials began production in Cincinnati.

DeKuyper operations were finally relocated to the Beam distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky in 2011, where it is distilled today.