By an edict of 1688, the Great Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg, in his capacity as Count of Ravensberg, granted the inhabitants of Steinhagen the exclusive privilege to distil alcohol and the area is still known for its Steinhäger gins (wacholder), distilled from crushed, fermented, juniper berries from the bushes of that plant that grow on the slopes of the nearby Teutoburg Forest. In the nineteenth century around twenty companies produced the spirit. Only gins distilled near Steinhagen can legally be called Steinhäger gins.