BESPOKE DIRECT-TO-OBJECT PRINTING

Sterkstokers is a distillery based in Brecht, Belgium. It offers its customers a personalised and bespoke spirit-distilling experience. Individuals and brands can create their own alcohol flavour blends and design their own unique personalised bottles.

Thomas Cuyvers, Sterkstokers Master Distiller and Managing Director, launched the first iteration of the company in his garage in 2011. Cuyvers has a background as a yeast specialist for bakers. However, when he started experimenting with yeast to create spirits, he had no idea that distilling ran in the family. His great-grandfather Driek ‘Den Driek’ Cuyvers, illegally distilled jenever – a juniper flavoured traditional Belgian liquor – during the German occupation of Belgium. In addition, his grandfather Antoon was fined by the occupying forces for the illegal possession and use of a still just before liberation. Cuyvers was quite unaware of this piece of family history until he took up the craft, giving Sterkstokers a story as unique as each blend it crafts for customers.

“Sterkstokers is now able to offer bespoke designs”

It was while experimenting with different flavours that Cuyvers had the idea for the business model that works so well today. He explains, “I had a little bit of success because I produced small batches. The first customer came to me and asked for the same recipe with another colour.” He continues, “Then, after a short time, another person came to me and asked me to make a gin with pumpkin for a local pumpkin festival. I noticed that it was really easy to create this recipe, so I started developing a whole library for my customers.” 

Nestled next to the beautiful canal in Sint-Lenaarts, Sterkstokers’ modern and light industrial building embodies factory chic. 
Its design emanates the company’s brand of bespoke and high-quality products. The company doubles as a working distillery and a venue to host groups for workshops and team-building days. The Sterkstokers experience can be felt from the moment customers set foot in the door. From the tastefully branded wooden barrels filled with distilling spirits to the floor-to-ceiling shelves of glass apothecary jars of botanicals and flavourings. Next door, a vibrant space displays hundreds of creative bottle designs. 

Cuyvers comments, “We have a model where we invite our customers to choose their ingredients from our aromatic library 
and we help them with the blending during a hands-on workshop.” He adds, “After a few weeks we can produce this recipe and our customers can have 60 bottles of their own blend, bottled with their own bottle designs to take away. This is a unique position in the market.” 

Sterkstokers’ main customer groups include restaurants and individuals who create their own branded gins. Furthermore, its bespoke service attracts companies either seeking a unique business gift for customers or team-building days.

The Inkcups Helix ONE® DTO system enables smaller and even single print runs. DTO printing lends itself perfectly to Sterkstokers’ bespoke and personalised business model. The company invested in an Inkcups Helix ONE® UV DTO cylindrical printer in May 2024. As a result, Sterkstokers is now able to offer bespoke designs, alongside its personalised spirit blends. Adding high-quality DTO-printed bottle designs, has enabled Sterkstokers to significantly elevate its model.

Prior to investing in Inkcups’ DTO technology, Sterkstokers was decorating its bottles with traditional adhesive labels. This was fine for large volumes. However, the personalised experience that Sterkstokers offers its customers is not well suited to this approach. Recognising this, Cuyvers began experimenting with DTO printing options, catching the attention of his customers in the process. He explains that it was Inkcups’ European service and support, the high quality of the machine and ease of operation that made the Helix ONE® stand out from any alternatives he had explored. He comments, “With the new Inkcups machine we don’t have any problems anymore.” He goes on to say, “The main benefit is the quality of the printing. It’s really, really nice.” 

“A huge advantage is the level of support offered by Inkcups”

A huge advantage, Cuyvers explains, is the level of support offered by Inkcups. Being a distillery and not a printing company, this has been crucial in Sterkstokers’ success with the Helix ONE®. He explains, “After the installation they helped us with technical advice and, after a few months, got back in contact to evaluate how it was working and, besides the small questions, we had no problems.”

Wim Janssens, Distiller at Sterkstokers, is responsible for print production at the company and echoes Cuyvers’ thoughts. He explains how Inkcups’ intensive training really helped the team to get up and running on the new machine quickly. He says, “I really like using it, it’s really easy to use. We had a DTO printer before but the safety features weren’t so good and we didn’t have training for it, so we damaged quite a lot [of printheads].” He concludes, “With the Helix ONE®, it’s a very safe machine with lots of sensors so that if something goes wrong it just shuts down.”

Since investing in the Helix ONE®, around 70% of customers choose DTO-printed labels due to the quality and special effects possible. Cuyvers says, “For me, the recipe, the flavours, everything combined together is important, but in the end, the design and the experience is the most important.” He continues, “It’s the first thing they see. After that, if it’s good they will repeat buy. But the first thing is the bottle.” 

Cuyvers comments, “Our most inventive print is a kind of cracked design with only varnish on the bottle on transparent glass. It creates the effect of old glass and then on top we print with colours, the design and the text,” He continues, “The result is that everybody wants to touch the bottle like, ‘wow what’s that?’.”

Reflecting on some of his favourite effects possible with the Helix ONE®, Janssens adds, “You can do a lot of things with the printer, you are only limited by your imagination. You can print with varnish or without varnish.” He continues, “We have special bottles that are coated, but when you print varnish on it you can see through it, so you can do a lot of crazy designs with it. We designed a whisky bottle that I really like that has a sort of snakeskin design on it using the varnish.” 

The ability to cost effectively print just one bottle or produce small batches of high-quality printed bottles has lent itself perfectly to Sterkstokers’ personalisation model. It has also enabled Cuyvers to boost sales and marketing by being able to print examples of designs to show to prospective customers. He says, “For new customers, now we can just print one bottle with their logo on it. With the printed label this was impossible. You had to order, wait two weeks. Now we can create really nice high-quality single bottle pieces.” He adds, “When we offer that to our prospects, so many people already see what it will be and that works very well for sales.” 

Anke Joosen, a Sterkstokers customer, used the power of DTO printing to create a special limited edition run of gin bottles to celebrate a local flower festival – Bloemencorso Loenhout. Joosen came up with the idea to feature the dahlia – a flower used in the float displays each year – both as a flavour within her personalised gin and in the design for the bottle. She settled on a complete corsage design with the dahlias curving around the bottle. Describing the response to the bottle, Joosen says, “It gives more of an oomph to the bottle because you see all kinds of bottles all over the world with just the label on top of it. But this gives it more cachet and something extra.” After the success of the 2024 Festival’s limited edition gin bottle, Joosen plans to create a new design annually. The design for the 2025 event is already well underway, this time using a black bottle featuring pink flowers in the design. 

Another example of innovative design, paired with DTO printing, is a collaboration between Sterkstokers and Bar Woest, a local summer bar. Having worked with larger spirit brands, co-founder Joppe Ruts began working with Cuyvers in 2024, in order to feature more local products. Coinciding with Bar Woest’s fifth year this year, Cuyvers and Ruts embarked on a new venture together – the launch of a new bar located on the river next to Sterkstokers’ distillery. To mark the occasion, a limited edition run of Bar Woest-branded gin bottles was produced. Ruts comments, “A lot of people ask us ‘Can I have the empty bottles please, because I like the design so much!’ I think in the near future we will make our own liquor for this bar too and use the same technique. It’s easy and it’s beautiful, and it doesn’t feel like mass production.”

These reactions from customers are testament to the high quality of the Inkcups DTO printing capabilities for spirits bottles. They demonstrate how DTO-printed bottles leave a lasting impression long after they have been consumed. They can be kept as collector’s items, decorative pieces and event memorabilia. As a company that has always had its finger on the pulse of innovation, Sterkstokers has capitalised on all the benefits of DTO printing. As a result, the company has boosted the success of its personalisation business. Regarding the next step for the company, Cuyvers indicates that there may be a second Helix ONE® on the horizon. As Janssens highlighted, the only limitation for this company is the imagination of its customers.