The Austrians and indeed people all over central Europe have a long tradition of making fruit brandies so they know a thing or two about distilling. It wasn’t until 1995, however, that Austria’s first whisky distillery, Roggenhof, began making whisky at Roggenreith with rye as its speciality. Since then it has been joined by others and now there are an estimated 50 distilleries producing whisky though most of it is on a very small scale and little is exported.