Distilling
the future.

How a finance guy challenged centuries of tradition.
And changed the way we make spirits.

An illustrated Hungarian village and plum orchards, where Odin’s curiosity about pálinka began

Hungary.
Before there was iStill.

He had a full-time job.
And a new obsession.

On holiday in Hungary, Odin discovered pálinka. Some was wonderful. Some tasted like turpentine. He wanted to know why.

Back home, he was a change manager in finance. Distilling was another world.

But distilling had got under his skin. He learned from a retired master distiller in the family, read everything he could find, and started experimenting.

Then he found other people asking the same questions.
They were all over the world.

Odin in his workshop, illustrated from an original 2015 photograph

10,000+

posts. And a question
behind every one.

He started testing
the old explanations.

He became a leading contributor in online distilling communities. Sharing recipes. Testing ideas. Working through assumptions with people he’d never met.

Some explanations held up. Others led back to one thing: that was how it had always been done.

Odin loved the romance of distilling.
He wanted the science to be just as good.

The knowledge
was moving forward.
The equipment wasn’t.

Better understanding meant better ways to control a run. To use less energy. To make the same beautiful spirit again.

But there was only so much you could ask of equipment built around centuries-old thinking.

He could keep working around its limits.
Or help build something different.

Ink drawing of the original iStill 50, including the small controller and tall column

So he
built one.

April 2013. The iStill 50.

A little boiler. A tall column. An exposed controller.
A different idea of what a still could be.

His dad helped assemble it. He’d spent his working life around jet engines at KLM.

Even he was impressed.

April 2013Odin with the first unit. His father helped assemble it.

A month later,
a three-week waiting list.

18 May 2013, from the archive ↗

People he’d never met
wanted one.

Norway. America. Colombia. Australia.
The little still was travelling further than anyone expected.

June 2013Ola’s iStill in Norway. Complete with a Norwegian flag.

March 2015Olivigna, Australia. A 24-hour flight. A first brandy. And very good hosts.

December 2013Munich. The early iStill team, off the clock.

Odin went where the distillers were.

A 24-hour flight to Melbourne. Assembly. Training.
The first brandy off the still. Lunch with the people making it.

Back home, there were more orders waiting.

Some people didn’t even
think it was a still.

A still that didn’t look like a still. Automation in a craft built on tradition. An outsider asking uncomfortable questions.

The resistance was real. At an early trade show, people walked past without even recognizing the machines as distilling equipment.

Making something different was one thing.
Helping people understand it was another.

Odin remembers the early trade shows ↗

So Odin invited them
to come and learn.

Growth had exposed another gap. In 2014, Odin admitted that product development had moved faster than service.

But people who came to visit, ask questions and run the machines with the team left knowing what to do.

That became central to iStill University.
Distillers came from around the world to learn the science—and put it to work.

A real iStill University gathering reimagined as a drawing, showing distillers sharing drinks and ideas around the workbench

June 2016Students from the University of Lille visit the Amsterdam iStill Center.

December 2016Learning together at an early iStill workshop.

February 2017A gin workshop on the floor of the iStill Assembly Hall.

February 2017Ten participants explore gin recipes and distillation together.

May 2017The class at an early iStill training in Utah.

October 2017Odin teaches fermentation and distillation in Utah.

October 2017Students learn how to assemble their still.

February 2018Students learning together in the iStill University classroom.

May 2018Beers and burgers after the first day of the Utah workshop.

November 2018Odin and the students at the four-day Australian workshop.

November 2018Odin explains mashing to the class.

November 2019Hands-on recipe development during an iStill University workshop.

He could sell more stills.
But not like this.

By late 2015, iStill had a worldwide customer base and machines going into larger production distilleries.

But production was spread across two locations. Development teams were working in three countries.

The setup couldn’t keep pace with the quality and innovation Odin wanted. And a young technology in a skeptical industry couldn’t afford to fall short.

This wasn’t something another feature could fix.

To stand behind every machine,
he had to take control of how it was built.