Pálinka the Hungarian fruit brandy

There is more to drink in Hungary than wine.

Pálnika , which is one the best-known alcoholic drink in Hungary is basically a fruit brandy and it is quickly downed with bravado in some circles with glasses dramatically slammed down afterwards. In a Hungarian home you may be offered a shot of rough házi pálinka ( homemade fruit brandy ).Sometimes it was not made in that very home, perhaps it was even made by relatives in Transylvania. Particularly in the countryside, it is customary to greet guests with a drink. If you stick around long enough you are sure to come across pálinka so harsh it feels like gasoline sliding through your insides. Just as wine taken seriously in Hungary, so is pálinka, and there has been a proliferation of premium pálinka over the last few years to prove it.

Thanks to the government’s flexible regulations on making pálinka, many people try to make their own but it can have its downsides, so if you want to taste the best pálinka and want to have a great experience, choose from the offer of one of the well-estebalished distilleries.

What is Pálinka?

The term itself derives from the slavonic stem ’paliti’ which means to burn to distill and originally it was used to refer to alcoholic drinks made from wheat. Today it refers to any type of distilled friut brandy which is derived  fermented exclusively from fruit and is locally grown in Hungary, and free of additional ingredients; it is grown, distilled and bottled in Hungary; and it is not rectified higher than 86% and is bottled with at least 37.5% ABV.

Genuine Pálinka

True pálinka only comes from Hungary and is made from fruits harvested from the fertile Carpathian Basin region of Hungary. Pálinka’s history can be traced back hundreds of years, and it’s no doubt that ancestors of today’s Hungarians were plucking sun-ripened fruit from trees to ferment and distill. Pálinka is strong, with an alcohol content between 37% and 86%. Authentic pálinka should allow the fruit to stand on its own merit without the addition of sugars, flavors, or coloring.

The brand name “pálinka” is protected by EU and Hungarian law, so producers outside of Hungary are not allowed to use the brand name “pálinka” for their products, but they can produce similar fruit brandies and sell them under different brand names.

Celebrating Pálinka

Palinka is so vital to Hungarian culture that it is often celebrated during festivals and ranked and rated during contests. Some people even take pálinka-judging courses so they can assess the fruit brandy professionally. Pálinka judges are skilled at discerning how brandies in a competition differ from one another and which ones are better than others when flavors and fragrances are compared.

In Budapest, festivals that celebrate pálinka include the Pálinka and Sausage Festival in October and the Pálinka Festival in May. These festivals offer an excellent opportunity to sample a variety of brandies from makers from all over Hungary.

Pálinka gives strength

The stronger the harsher the better. „Pálinka gives strength”, goes the old folk saying, which must be why people in rural areas have traditionally sipped a little with breakfast to prepare them for a day of work in the fields or factories. It is a necessity in the pre-dawn hours at traditional village pig slaughters, when the cold is biting and you1ve got hours to go until the feast reaches the table. Pálinka is practically essential at family celebrations and holidays wouldn’t be complete without a premeal round of pálinka. It is an aperitif on special occasions or in anticipation of a big meal. It is part of a welcome ritual that hospitable Hungarians go through when guests show up. When there are guests, the more bottles on the table , the better.

Pálinka was first used for medicinal purposes rather than pleasureble ones. Advertisments no longer  boast of its healing properties, but you will stil lhear people recommend it for stomachaches, colds, fever or even high blood pressure. Despite the craze over high-end pálinka, the házi stuff still has its following, and in the countryside there are distilling houses where small-scale growers take their own fruit to be processed into pálinka.

For most people pálinka isn’t an every day indulgence, and for a small but increasing number of people it is a hobby , almost like wine tasting.” It is clear that a much richer, variable distillate culture used to flourish. This colourful culture receded in the 20th century. „ wrote Géza Balázs , author of Pálinka Hungaricum: The Hungarian Specialty. But pálinka culture has been coming back over the past years or so. A revival of Hungarian distillers in the 1990s has resulted in the re-emergence of some nearly forgottten types of pálinka. Once made with old or half-rotten fruit that couldn’t be used for anything  else , today’s pálinka is often made in small batches, and always with the best quilty fruit. A selection of premium pálinka is usually added to wine lists in the nicer restaurants and they are not cheap.

The price difference between the different varieties of pálinka isn’t always reflective of quality. Often the most expensive pálinka is made from rare , hard to pick fruit. Perhaps the most famous pálinka is the szatmári szilvapálinka ( plum pálinka from Szabolcs -Szatmár county  in northeastern Hungary ) It, along with plum pálinka  from Békés in the southeast , apricot pálinka from the Great Plain around Kecskemét , and apple pálinka are products with protected designation of origin in Hungary.  Another exiting change has been the revival of törköly pálinka , the Hungarian version of grappa. This pálinka is disilled from pomace ( the residue left from grapes  after pressing them for wine ; mostly stalks , skins,  and seeds) . In the grape -growing regions törköly pálinka was once commonly produced , but during the Communist era os mass produced wines, the tradition suffered.  Now both  pálinka distillers and winemakers have reurned to making törköly pálinka, and they are making exellent varietal pálinka from the pomace of grapes like cabernet franc , merlot , irsai olivér, sárgamuskotály, olaszrizling and chardonnay. Like wine , some of this törköly pálinka is also labeled with the vintage year and the best is aged in oak barrels. Also look out for the aszú törköly pálinka which is being made by a few distillers and for törköly pálinka by wineries like Attila Gere and Ede and Zsolt Tiffán in Villány, Göncöl in Tokaj, Hilltop in Neszmély  , Thummerer in Eger , Zolán Heimann in Szekszárd, and Ottó Légli in Balatonboglár.

Just as  it is best to buy your wine at specialized wine shops, if you are looking for premium pálinka you are better off going to a pálinka shop and some wine shops also sell good pálinka. High quaility labels to watch out for include: Zwack Nemes, Agárdi , Zimek ( Treffpunkt GAR 2000) Tarpa , Vitalis, Brill Market, Miskolci Likőrgyár, Rézüsti, Zsindelyes, Szicsek, Rézangyal, and Békési.

Pálinka Translator

Pálinka is increasingly being made with more unusual and lesser-known varieties of fruit.

Since some of these fruits aren’t available outside of Central Europe, this list should help when you ’re shoping for pálinka

ágyas pálinka: pálinka with fruit or herbs at the bottom of the bottle ( „bedded” pálinka )

cigánymegy : a collective name for any type of small cherries

borpárlat : a drink made from distilled wine ; it is essentially brandy

csipekebogyó: rosehip

erdei or vad: wild

eper: strawberry

feketeribizli: black current

gesztenye: chestnut

kökény: sloe

meggy: sour cherry

mézes: honey flavoured

oszibarack: peach

ringló: greengage plum

sárgadinnye: cantaloupe or honeydew melon

som: European Cornel ( a species of dogwood that produces fruit )

szamóca: wild strawberry

szeder: blackberry

szilva: plum

szőlő: grape

vadalma: a type of crabapple native to Central Europe

Vilmoskörte: Williams or Bartlett pear

készült: made

erdei vadmálna: wild raspberry

kisüsti: small batches of pálinka made by using the traditional method of double batch distillation

pálinka: brandy distilled from fruit with no added sugar or alcohol

pálinkafőzde: pálinka distillery

párlat: any kind of distilled drink

szeszesital: a distilled spirit of lower quality than a true pálinka

szilvórium: a high-quality plum pálinka

törköly pálinka: pálinka distilled from pomace

alma: apple

barack, sárgabarack os kajszibarack: apricot

bodza: elderberry

birs: quince; it is often called birsalma in years when it’s shaped like an apple and birskörte in years when it’s shaped like a pear

Pálinka tasting

In the pub, pálinka is drunk more for the effect than for the taste .But becuause of the growing number of pálinka connoisseurs appreciate the craft and raw materials that went into making good pálinka, they pay more attention to how they drink it. In restaurants and bars pálinka is normally served in portions of two or four centiliters.

Pálinka is usually served in unflattering shot glasses filled to the rim. But, like wine , the right type of glassware makes a difference. So the alcohol scent won’t overwhelm, the ideal glass is long stemmed, round at the bottom, and strait and narrow at the top.

Do not swirl your pálinka. Rather than smelling the fruit aroma, you’ll just smell the alcohol

Do not chill Pálinka. It will dull both the flavour and the bouquet ( 16 to 18 degress Celsius, or 60 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit, is recommended serving temperature)

Generally, the older the pálinka the better it will be.

Distillers talk about the „dry test” : if ten minutes after drinking your pálinka the empty glass smells like fruit rather than alcohol, the pálinka was good quality.