What actually happens behind the scenes at kukki? The longest bar in the world, a handful of bartenders mixing the best cocktails in the city for you in shifts—we don’t have that. Sorry to disappoint you. Nevertheless, quite a lot is done by hand at our production facility.
People and machines
We make no secret of the fact that our production cannot function without machines. After all, our kukki nerds designed and built them themselves with great care and an eye for detail. They are perfectly tailored to kukki’s individual production process. When the idea of a ready-to-drink cocktail with ice in the bottle first emerged, there were many hurdles to overcome. No machine developed up to that point could meet our standards.
The tech nerds on the kukki team
Josef Klemm, nicknamed Sepp, is the heart and mind of kukki. He took his first steps toward creating a cocktail with ice in the bottle at an early age. The first cocktails were sold at an aviation festival. At the very end of a bar, Sepp and some friends offered the guests of the Benediktbeuern gliding club their specially produced cocktails.
The business went well, and people were thrilled by the idea. Only the implementation still left something to be desired. It’s hard to imagine that today, as you walk through the hallowed halls of our production facility. But—true story—the first kukki Cocktails were produced in the workshop of his parents’ farm. The ice was frozen in plastic bags and then broken up with a hammer. These first attempts were still a long way from an innovative solution.
As a trained mechanical engineer, Sepp developed a more efficient solution. He designed ice molds himself and conducted initial long-term tests. One of the first kukki patents was born—cylindrical ice cubes! Ever since, kukki ice cubes have been pressed especially firmly so that the Cocktail becomes liquid as it thaws, while the ice remains frozen. During his second degree in electronics, Sepp met another tech nerd with a love of Cocktails. None other than our ray of sunshine, Saif Hamed! Together, the two designed an entire machine system for kukki production.
From rough diamond to kukki Cocktail
Standing perfectly straight in neat rows, the empty bottles are ready to make their way to your freezer. A crane moves them from a pallet onto the conveyor belt. The bottles are then labeled with the kukki label. Genuine only with the igloo 😉
From there, they go through a rinsing cycle to give the inside of the bottles a final clean. Gripper arms guide them upside down in a circle over the water system. Some of the machines look like fairground carousels. Fun in production, fun when enjoying them!
In the next step, the cylindrical ice is carefully portioned into the Cocktail bottles. Our production process is precisely timed, because the ice needs to retain its shape and must not melt. The fresh ingredients, such as berries, peppermint leaves, or cucumber pieces, are then added by hand. The Cocktail bottles quickly move on to be filled. They travel up a carousel-like platform and return to the conveyor belt filled with the kukki Cocktail mix of high-quality alcohol, liqueurs, and fruit juices. They are sealed with crown caps by machine.
Then comes a burst of manpower—our favorite Bernd packs the kukki Cocktails into boxes by hand and moves them into the cooling system. There, the ready-to-drink Cocktails are cooled and frozen to -18°C . Once they are frozen, they are ready for delivery.
We are so proud of the development of the kukki Cocktails. From the workshop at his parents’ farm to a facility of this size. Our production machines contain an enormous amount of passion, sweat, perhaps the occasional tear, discarded plans, and successful implementations.
