fall summer , a sizeable universe of landlocked Hungarians escape to Lake Balaton , where they spend long weekends lounging in the shallow , 50 - mile freshwater lake — Central Europe ’s biggest . Some have playfully dubbed it the Hungarian Sea . There are peaceable , grassy beaches called strands , vendor hawking plastic toys and , on the south side , nightclubs for the untested , music - hump revelers who flock here . The lake is synonymous with its surrounding vino regions — most notably Badacsony — but it is also house toCsalló , one of Hungary ’s best producers of pálinka , an indigenous fruitbrandy . On one scorching Clarence Shepard Day Jr. I find myself in Lake Balaton not to lazily read a book in the sunlight , but with my champion Gergely Kispál — a native Magyar and pálinka expert — to learn more about the spirit I have come to faint over .
When I first move from New York City to Budapest a little over a year ago , I was immediately acquaint with this brace pellucid liquidness , served in a petite , tulip - forge glass just before a satisfying feast of goose . While I was n’t expecting the surge of heating that rushed down my gullet , the burn was cheerily balance by a jolt of ripe pear . It was nothing like syrupy Germanschnapps .
Pálinka is in the same family as Normandy ’s illustrious apple calvados and the plum slivovitz favored in the Czech Republic , yet it is distinctly Hungarian , made only with bracing fruit grown throughout the country . There are plenty of rough versions—86 per centum alcohol bombs that burn like backwoodsmoonshine — but increasingly there are also top - nick rendition . With alcohol content linger between 40 and 50 percent , the better ones are true liquid facial expression of fruit , ranging from cherry to Cydonia oblonga to grape .
Mark Yocca/Supercall
One such superior manufacturer is Csalló , located on the northeast side of the lake in Balatonalmádi . Jenő Csalló , a chemical engineer , first started his operation on a little scurf in 1999 , fermenting and distill pálinka for others when the country was still adjusting to a new life sentence devoid from the oppressive Iron Curtain . His teen Word Gergő aid out because “ it was good than flipping burgers and make lángos , ” a pizza pie - same fry simoleons that is a basic of Hungarian street solid food . By 2005 it was metre to set up the Csalló make , which now produces around 6,000 bottle a year . Today , a ripe Gergő , who for days worked abroad as a bartender and sailing skipper before regress to his father ’s business sector in 2013 , is Csalló ’s front adult male . He ’s since grown extremely passionate about the spirit he deemed as a young person to be “ just an alcohol-dependent drink . ”
improbable and lean , Gergő , fit out merely in a t - shirt and boxers , graciously shows me and Gergely around his tiny , bare - pearl facility . It ’s exactly what one expect and hope of a country still . Jenő , who speaks very trivial English , crunches number on a computer . A truehearted client walks into his business office - cum - stockroom , and , after exchanging a few pleasantries , orders two bottles each of plum and apricot , Csalló ’s most democratic smack . But there are many more , from raspberry and strawberry , to blackcurrant and the more obscure Sorbus aucuparia berry . Pálinka is limited , Gergő tell me , because it is stringently made from everlasting Magyar fruit . It can not be bolstered with artificial essences and smell . Caramel , dearest and loot are strictly verboten .
My ally Gergely already be intimate this , of course . He is the co - founder of Essentium Pálinka , a ship’s company that export the native spirit . Growing up , he tells me , his father and granddaddy made pálinka by hired man and drink it all the time . He hate its smell , which remind him of rubbing alcohol . “ It was hard and labored , but you swallowed it anyway , ” he says . But as he got Old , he begin to appreciate the nuances of timbre pálinka . And , after noticing in the mid-2000s that young Hungarians were going out and opt pálinka over beer or wine , he decided to start up a society give to export Hungary ’s timeless swallow . “ It is something unusual , something unique to Hungary , ” he says . “ Along with the actual spirit , we also wanted to export the polish that surrounds it to new places . ”
Back in the fourteenth century , when King Charles I of Hungary and his married woman were suffering from arthritis , they look for out pálinka for its healing medicinal properties . But it went on to become a symbol of theworking class . Those fag in the field of honor would begin their Clarence Shepard Day Jr. saying , “ Good sunup with pálinka ! ” before taking an invigorating shot that also aided digestion and blood flow . Gergő also points out that distilling pálinka rise out of realism : It was a practical way of life topreserve fruitthat would have otherwise go rotten .
yield is the backbone of pálinka . Csalló process it immediately , chop , Diamond State - stemming and removing stone . The producer grow the fruit into a pulp and commit it into zymolysis tanks that are cool off down and stirred unceasingly . They jump - start fermentation with yeast , which helps break down pectin and boost sapidity . Then , the fermented mash is placed in a 460 - litre fuzz still with a water bathing tub and distil . It is then distil for a 2nd time in a 160 - liter copper still . There , the liquid benefits from a pálinka vapor taster . Csalló ’s own invention , it ’s a correction tower that effectively shorten the head from the core of the spirit . After the spirit matures for three to six months in oak and mulberry barrel crafted by local barrel maker , it emerges as aged pálinka , which flaunts richwhiskey - like machine characteristic .
As the Hungarian worker of yore would certify , there is no wrong time to drink pálinka , but it ’s usually enjoyed as anaperitifto reach the roof of the mouth . These twenty-four hour period , imaginative barkeeper are also weaving it into libations with ingredients from Malus pumila juice and vanilla extract , to Cointreau and Aperol . Some people even cook with it . Gergő likes to strap up a creamy cheeseflower soup with blueberry Pálinka and alligator pear . “ I ’m not saying pour it into your goulash , ” he says , “ but pálinka does n’t have to be the end product . It work in both nutrient and cocktail . ”
Csalló might not have a showy tasting room on the premiss , but there is an enchanting patio where those who make an appointment in cash advance can slow down , while the good - natured Gergő plies them with bread and cheese and guides them through pálinka tastings pepper with ethnical and historical anecdote . Like the rest of Lake Balaton , the scene is moony . It ’s hard to pull up stakes without having just one more sip .
