Lucas Bols to a stream. By 1612 the city's walls had expanded to encompass the distillery, and the stream was dug out into a canal called the because of rose nurseries in the area. Around the same time, a new stone building was constructed to house the distillery. The first official mention is in 1640 in Amsterdam town papers, where "Pieter Jacobszoon Bols" is documented as operator of "t Lootsje" on the "Rozengracht". Lucas Bols was born in 1652. His era corresponded with the Dutch golden age, when the Netherlands were a colonial power, and led the world in international commerce. The
Lucas Bols "Distillateurs- en Liqueurbereiders Handboek door een oude patroon van 't Lootsje" (English: Distillers and Liqueur makers Handbook by an old patron of "The Little Shed"), which is now in the Bols archives. In 1868 the firm was again sold, this time to the Moltzer family who greatly expanded the company. In 1889, the "Rozengracht" canal was filled in order to provide a new major thoroughfare for Amsterdam. The old site was abandoned and a modern steam powered distillery was built in nearby Nieuw Vennep. Other distilleries were built in Scheveningen and in Emmerich, just over the Dutch border in Germany.