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It's actually fairly common for mostly-autonomous overseas parts of an EU member state to not be part of the EU. The Dutch Caribbean and French Pacific islands have the same status as Greenland. They're quite independent in terms of domestic policy and also not typically very close to Europe, so applying the EU's laws to them is not always practical or useful. I believe they all have standing invites to join if they wish, though.
There's actually a tiny exclave of Germany that is completely surrounded by Switzerland and is also not in the EU customs union, so sometimes it can happen on mainland Europe. Other EU stuff does apply in that exclave that does not in Greenland, so it's not quite the same, but still
The two British military bases on Cyprus do still fall within the EU customs union despite being British Overseas Territories, so a tiny bit of the UK that sort of didn't Brexit
Heligoland is not in the customs union either, they have their own tax regime. Or rather the federation has enabled Schleswig-Holstein to give Heligoland their own tax regime: No VAT, no usual alcohol, tobacco etc taxes, instead a municipal import tax is levied without which they'd have rather empty coffers. Or at least that was the situation before the renewable boom: They were reliant on duty-free tourism, now there's plenty offshore wind maintenance to do.
...which, thinking about it, should mean that you can produce alcohol on the island and sell it completely tax-free. And they do have a whisky distillery.
Fun fact: The island is called, in the local Frisian dialect, "deät Lun", "the land". A whopping 1237 people on 4.2km^2^.
Well I love a whisky but I've never had a German one. I'll have to have a look out for it, especially if it's gonna be a bit cheaper!
The thing about the name reminds me a little of some of Scotland's islands. The Orkney and Shetland islands, two archipelagoes in the north, both call their biggest island "Mainland"
German whisky only started to appear in the last 20 years or so, but it's not like ageing Korn would be a new thing, and whisky is essentially Korn aged for more than 3years and no less strong than 40ABV. (Korn has a minimum of 32, 38 are common). Oh, whisky is usually barley while Korn tends to be rye and/or wheat, but law only says "grain" for either. And both, of course, are distilled, unhopped, beer.
So, without actually having tried any of them myself (the like one bottle I buy every three years is a Talisker): Expect some creativity when it comes to the grains used, as well as no harsh fusel oils whatsoever, as those are considered a defect in Korn. Definitely no peat on Heligoland, I guess here in the rest of the North we would have plenty of peat but we're trying to restore the moors, not get rid of them. Does smoking with beech work? That's what we do to ham and fish. Alcohol-wise the traditional spirit is Kööm, an aquavit from Korn and caraway, maybe dill and a tiny bit of anise.
Oh and the whisky would only be cheaper on he island itself, same goes for any other alcohol sold there, and you might have to pay import duty when coming back (yes they do check) so you can't bring large amounts tax-free.