The geographical and the climatic endowments of Hungary allow the production of fruits in excellent quality. Good raw material is the basis for good products, and this is also true of pálinka.
Pálinka may be made exclusively from noble and wild fruits as well as from grape mash, which are grown, mashed, distilled, aged and bottled in Hungary.
These are the four secrets of making excellent-quality pálinka:
- Fully ripe, healthy and intact fruits – rich in taste and aroma – are used as raw materials;
- Careful mash-making and fermenting;
- Modern and sophisticated distillation;
- Resting and bottling – perhaps aging – the pálinka.
In addition to this, it has to be known how much real pálinka can be distilled from how much fruit. For example, in the case of apricot, 14-15 litres of excellent pálinka can be made from 100 kg raw material. The first, and perhaps most important aspect is that good-quality, ripened, selected and cleaned fruits should be used in the course of processing.
When making the mash, the fruits should be – depending on the fruit type – stoned (drupaceous fruits) or ground (berries or pomiferous fruits).
Careful preparations are followed by the fermentation of the fruits. This controlled fermentation technological process is also of great importance in preparing good-quality pálinka because this is how the taste and fragrance of the fruits – representing an excellent content value – can be preserved.
The fermentation of the mash is followed by distillation. In order to ensure modern and sophisticated distillation we use distillation equipment where pálinka can be made from the mash directly, in one single stage. The crucial part of the equipment is called fine-distillation column that is connected to the boiler, and in which the upward-moving steam continuously gets richer in alcohol, and finally descends in the form of pálinka through the cooling system.
The distillation process requires extensive expertise and experience since this is where the first run and the after-run are separated.
Finally, having been rested in anti-corrosion steel tanks, the pálinka is manually bottled and labelled in order to access the consumers.
