An Island in the Fohrground. – by CHRIS GRETA

Chances are pretty good that unless you’re from Germany or Denmark, you’ve never heard of the place and a fascinating family-owned farm that’s evolved for what is now four hundred years.

FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.

I hadn’t. I hadn’t heard of the farm or the island.

So when I was hounding distilleries in Scotland to come write about them, somehow, I ended up hounding the Hinrichsen’s Farm and Distillery.

I remember seeing Fohr Island and thinking, why not. Maybe it’s off the coast of Scotland.

It ain’t.

So, a little geography, history, and cultural enlightenment on this magical place. And some of this is stuff you’ll find anywhere online, which is what I’m doing now and saving you the effort. But to me, the feeling of what it’s like to be here is more important and I’ll get to that.

The facts, stolen from Wikipedia etc.

Fohr is an island in the North Sea, just off the coast of Germany and not far from the border with Denmark. It’s been settled since the Neolithic times and until a huge storm in 1362, it was attached to the mainland.  That storm destroyed much of the coastline and was known as “Grote Mandrenke”, which translates literally to The Great Drowning of Men.

Which could be the best name for any storm ever. If someone had named Hurricane Harvey The Great Storm That Completely Walloped The Big Easy, there would have been a little more justice in the world.

After the storm broke away the land attachment and turned Fohr into an island, it bounced back and forth between Denmark and Prussia and eventually to Germany through various wars and battles. At one point, it was a seafaring hub, as a lot of whaling captains built houses here.

Now it’s tourists and locals.

But there is a thriving culture all its own here. Most everyone speaks German and some a little English, but when it’s just the locals, they’ll speak Frisian, which is its own language altogether.

To my untrained ear, it’s hard to tell from German, and in the few days I’ve been here, I’ve started to be able to pick out a few words here and there in conversation in German, but who knows if I’ll ever decipher Frisian. They tell me there are around 4,000 people who speak it.

I suppose that if anyone ever says something terrible about me, I’ll only know if they say “That Greta…. Something, something, something…”

It’s a small place, around 82 square kilometers, which is around 31 square miles.

I know people with ranches bigger back in Texas.

On this marvel in miniature, there are around 9,000 full-time residents, or at least homeowners. As my host, Jan Hinrichsen says, many people come here and buy a house, intent on settling into an idyllic island life and after a few cold, dark winters, they go back to where they came from.

Jan and his wife Marret both grew up on the island, met after high school, married and raised three children on the Hinrichsen farm.

Which has been in the family for over 400 years.

For an American, that’s almost impossible to comprehend.

Four-Hundred-Years in the same family.

Four Hundred Years.

So for Jan, keeping the whole farm sustainable and organic isn’t marketing. It isn’t green-washing.

It’s truly preparing for his great-great-great-great-great grandchildren.

Have you ever, or will you ever, know anyone who thinks that far ahead?

I do now.

So the island has one main town, Wyk, and a half dozen little hamlets that have some houses and maybe a biergarten, and there are bicycle trails everywhere. There are a lot of bikes and not a lot of cars, even though tourists can bring their car over on the ferry. The roads are narrow, uncrowded, and lovely.

And everything is green. Seriously green.

The weather patterns here are pretty unique and I’m meeting with a local scientist to learn more about this.

I think the weather and soil are good reasons why Jan’s whisky is so good. But we’ll be getting to that quite a bit over the next month.

Did I mention the place is magical yet?

It’s magical.

The towns and hamlets are full of houses that go back to the 1700s. Jan pointed out a few Captain’s houses, like one might see on other islands like Hawaii and New Zealand.

My first impression is that it wasn’t real. Everything is too perfect and beautiful and, damn, I hate to use the word, cute.

Yeah, it’s cute.

I’m sorry, Universe. I know any time you call a place cute, you stick a knife into its heart and little boutique shops pop up and bored husbands stand around on the sidewalk waiting for a spouse to come out with a package they’ll carry, like so many middle-aged pack mules.

But it’s totally true. A lot of the island is seriously cute.

That’s why the tourists come. Some fall in love with island life and stay (at least until the first winter).

Of course, the locals embrace the winter. The North Sea has warm water flowing, and the surrounding islands tend to shield Fohr from harm, so the winters are not as brutal as you might think and the summers are kind.

The days are short in the winter but it’s peaceful.

The summer tourist season brings another 30,000 tourists, and the resorts, restaurants, and shops are bustling; when winter comes, it’s quiet.

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

And probably gets to speak more Frisian.

Island life is its own unique thing. No matter what island you’re on, it just seems to move a little slower. A little more relaxed. I spoke with a couple who’d moved here a few years ago from Hamburg and were caught up in the big hustle-bustle. Both working big corporate jobs, long commutes, long hours, not much time with their kids when they had that Maxfieldian Moment* and said screw it, we’re moving to Fohr.

I saw the same thing in Marathon, Texas. It’s basically an island in the middle of the West Texas desert. An island without a ferry, but with a 35-mile drive across the open road.

And I can understand that exit.

I managed to luck into a house on a nice chunk of land with nobody in my chili, but a quick run to Home Depot if I run out of nails.

As I look around this island and look at the infrastructure and beautiful homes, many with thatch roofs, I try to imagine all those materials coming across on a ferry. As I spend more time here, I’ll figure out how all that works, but for now, it leaves one appreciating everything that’s here.

I’m on a mission of discovery on Fohr Island. To understand the culture, the place, and this wonderful farm and distillery that’s been in the Hinrichsen family for four hundred years.

Four hundred years.

That part still floors me.

Four hundred years. One farm. One family and the plan is to keep it going another four hundred years, and instead of making cheese, they make whisky.

Whisky… Cheese…

I’ll take the whisky.

Four hundred years.


- Chris Greta -
Sep 3, 2025