palinka
Jun 09 '10
All Hail the Return to Legality of Hungarian Homemade Hooch
With the right to distill our own Hungarian hooch part of Prime Minister Orbán's economic plan announced yesterday according to hirszerzo.hu, Fidesz have fulfilled a campaign promise announced months earlier. Consequently, we'll raise our shot glasses in celebration, keeping...
May 05 '10
Hammers Begin Pounding for 2010's Biggest Hangover
Walking though District V yesterday we noticed that workers were already busy putting up booths and other accoutrements for this Weekend's Budapesti Pálinka Fesztivál. They organizers also seem to have updated the English-language intro on the website, which as...
Apr 06 '10
Foreigners Already Flocking to Upcoming Pálinka Festival
There are so many pálinka festivals these days in Hungary we generally don't bother doing more than adding them to our calendar of food and wine events. But the annual event held each April in the eastern town of Gyula...
Feb 16 '10
Campaign Promise to Dilute Ban on Home Pálinka Distilling Receives Mixed Reactions
If it wins the upcoming elections as most believe it will, Fidesz will partially lift the ban on the private distilling of pálinka, Kossuth Rádió reports. The law would be modified to allow people to make an as-yet unannounced...
Aug 28 '09
Drink and Dine in Disneyland this Weekend
Fans of Disneyland architecture and home-style Hungarian food will appreciate this quick heads-up for Traditions, Flavors, Regions Festival to be held in Budapest's Vajdahunyad Castle this weekend. The event is hosted by the Agricultural Marketing Board and promises the...
Jun 09 '09
Booze News: Non-Alcoholic Beer Gains in Popularity as State Pours Cash into Hard Liquor Production
Two bits of interesting domestic booze news from last week. First, market research ACNielsen reported on Friday that a drop in prices for non-alcoholic beer has led to a relative surge in purchases of alkoholmentes sör by Hungarians. Consumption...
May 05 '09
50,000 Pálinka Fans Can't Be Wrong
Hard as it is to believe, it's already that time of the year again. As in past years, the 2009 Budapesti Pálinka Fesztivál offers not only hundreds of types of fruit distillates, but live music and plenty of the...
Jan 26 '09
Hungarian Fruit Brandy Loses Ground to Vegetables and Coffee, Gains on Diesel
A quick bit of advice to anyone pondering opening a store that exclusively stocks pálinka or a restaurant with a similarly obsessive devotion to fruit brandy: it probably won't work. Over the last few months I have seen several...
Sep 26 '08
Pálinka Production Stagnates, Pálinka Promenade Set to Boost Consumption
We read over on MTI's Econews site (it's one of the handful of non-subscription articles available every day) that pálinka production has stagnated in Hungary. While this seems like bad news for drinkers at first glance, we are informed...
May 08 '08
Have Yourself an Alcohol-Enhanced Weekend with Wine and Pálinka
You may have noticed that today is the kick off to the Pálinka Fesztivál held in the City Hall Park, which is quite different from the pálinka-soaked Sziget Fesztivál which will be held later this year. The event will...
Feb 22 '08
Hungarian Politicians Form Parliamentary Drinking Team, Insist It's a Pálinka Oversight Committee
A Five-party consensus has been reached on a bill about the establishment of a National Pálinka Committee (Pálinka Nemzeti Tanács) which is to regulate the production and types of pálinka, and perform quality control functions, writes Gazdasági Rádió, based on...
Jan 31 '08
Pigs' Feet and Donuts on This Weekend's Festival Program
Hungary's appetite for food festivals knows no limits as this weekend sees two more high-calorie events for lovers of local specialties. The southern town of Szeged is preparing for its first ever Kocsonya Festival in honor of jellied pigs' feet...
Jan 09 '08
The Hungarian Salami King of Illinois
Because of strict controls on the import of foods, Hungarians living in the US and Canada are starved of home-made Hungarian meat products, unless they can ask a friend or relative to play meat mule and smuggle their pungent...
Dec 06 '07
Mikulás Madness (III): Brave Knights, Braver Motorists Celebrate Hungary's First "Boozemas"
Hungary's largest daily, Népszabadság, is today reporting something so strange and seemingly unbelievable that we feel obliged to point out where it comes from. According to the paper, motorists arriving today at the Hegyeshalom border crossing with Austria will...
Nov 20 '07
Government to Pour Funds into Magyar Moonshine Promotion
Next year Ft 150 million - three times as much money as this year - will be provided from the central budget for pálinka marketing both in Hungary and abroad, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development József Gráf announced. According...
Oct 18 '07
Village Seeks World Heritage Status for Local Cherries, Whatever That Is
According to a report in regional daily Észak-Magyarország picked up by portal stop.hu, the village of Szomolya (Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, near Eger) has begun a campaign to have its prized local cherry given "World Heritage" status. The the "szomolya black" (szomolyai...
Oct 05 '07
Another Weekend, Another Pálinka Festival
After last week's Pálinka Promenade, it's hard to think of new things to say about the Pálinka and Sausage Festival up in the majestic Buda Castle this weekend. So we dug out this pic illustrating how the modern, tech-savvy Hungarian...
Sep 27 '07
Drive Away Those Autumn Blues at the Pálinka Promenade
There is a bit of a nip in the air, so wrap up warm if you want to go on a romantic stroll and enjoy the majestic views of Buda and Pest. Or drop down to the Dunakorzó, the "promenade"...
Sep 11 '07
Healthy Pálinka, Unhealthy Meat Processor Winners in Annual Hungarian Product Grand Prix
The annual Hungarian Product Grand Prix (Magyar Termék Nagydíj) was held last week in parliament, where awards were handed out for the 10th time to a range of domestically-manufactured products judged as exceptionally innovative or simply exceptional. According to...
May 29 '07
No Excuses As Agárdi Pálinka Goes Tropical
As we discovered at the Zwack factory a few weeks back, it takes a gruelling afternoon of tasting to identify the subtle nuances of pálinka, and to even begin to recognize all the different flavors. Because although official, EU-approved definitions...
May 02 '07
Booze News (III): I'm Sándor, and I'll Be Your Bartender Tour Guide Today
Today's news about booze concludes with a quick peek at the Zwack Unicum Heritage Visitors Centre, which we recently toured with the guidance of none other than Sándor Zwack (above), one of the youngest members of the family that...
