7/14/2011 - Kishegyes

We visited Pityu-Basci this afternoon. Avid readers of our blog will remember his 75^th birthday from the beginning of the blog (worth a revisit if you haven't read it, this would be the dread "Quince Extract Palinka Affair"). His 80^th birthday was scheduled for Sunday, but they were forced to cancel. He is going to the hospital tomorrow for an indefinite stay. He looks awful, but, as always, is a generous host. None the less, I can't shake the feeling as we leave that we probably won't be visiting with him next year.

*****

Evening in Kishegyes, and we are sitting at Laci-Basci and Erzsi-Neni's house, around a table made from the lid of a baby grand piano, sampling the fruits of our labor from yesterday. The palinka has sat in an open 26-ish gallon bucket overnight to breathe. The sugar and alcohol are then adjusted using a hydrometer and distilled water. Then it is ready for bottles. The final yield was around 70 liters.

As we were sitting there, sampling the product, there was this exchange between Vera and Peter that I found humorous:
    
Vera: "Doesn't it say 'for external use only.'"
    
Peter: "No, it stings when I use it that way."

We also met Sandor this evening. He is the third partner in the palinka empire. He and Z went to elementary school together. He is a very funny guy – at one point dialing up an old classmate that he and Z had in common and handing the phone to her. They only went to school together through kindergarten.

This is one of those evenings where I have had enough palinka that I actually think I speak Hungarian. As a result, further notes in my journal a more than a little illegible – so we'll leave it here for today.

7/13/2011 Kishegyes

We received sad news this morning. The mother of the cleaning lady we met at the police station died of diabetic related causes yesterday. We are keeping our new friend and her family in our thoughts and prayers.

It appears that I will be earning my Moonshining Merit Badge today. Someone has to run the still while Laci is at the funeral. Peter, Z and I have been elected.

I'm sure you're wondering (and if you're not, why not?) how it's all done. Like this – after the fruit has been cut, peeled and pitted, it is put in a big blue, food-grade barrel. It is left uncovered for several days to cook down through natural fermentation. The speed of the fermentation is controlled through the use of sugar. Like beer, it will foam up while this is going on. You will need to leave some space in your barrel for this. The foam is scraped off periodically.

You will be left with a liquid sludge of fermented fruit. After one last "pick through" by hand to clean up the last of the peels and pits, into the still it goes. The still is about 240 liters. It is a large copper tank, with an open fire made of hard wood and corn stalks underneath. There is a crank on the side that rotates paddles inside that stir the sludge. The steam is collected through a pipe and sent to the nearby condenser, a large metal tank with a garden hose rotating inside connected to a small outlet pipe. There you will find a small, match-stick sized stream of "product." The goal is to keep the heat under this still at just the right temperature to keep this flow constant. The final reading on the hydrometer should be in the vicinity of 30.

Peter is reducing 450 pounds of fruit. He'll end up with about 20 liters of palinka. Of course, this is just the apricot stuff.

Apples and pears are in the future. Those need to be coarsely ground before adding to the barrel. Cherries have already run. They only need be pitted before they are ready. The guys are not doing any berry palinka this year, it takes too much fruit. Next up for them will be plums.

My part of the process is to turn the crank on the still every so often, read the numbers on the thermometer (scarily, I seem to have the best eye sight of the crew at the moment), and to suck back a few Jelen Pivos. Yes, on a day like this, I'm prepared to even give Jelen a second chance. Good news! It's (barely) better out of the bottle. Which isn't saying much.

We visited with Emese this evening before going to dinner at Imre and Kati's next door. She told us about the involvement of eight of her school kids in the Hungarian National History Contest. They have 8 months to prepare for the contest. They are given a new task every month based around a central theme. This year, that was the military hero Rákoczy. During the day of competition they will present authentic period costumes, research papers and poster boards, a 5 minute movie, a period dance, compete in a whipping competition, present a gift to the judges – with appropriate speech, and create an authentic Rákoczy Salad. Emese had the only two teams from outside of Hungary.

As an aside – we frequently compare school systems while we are here. Talking shop, if you will. We were explaining that the schools in The 'Couve will shut down for the lightest dusting of snow. Emese informed us the only time they shut schools down around here is when they are bombed by NATO (for real!!). Yeah – that's a topper.

Dinner is with the wine crew this evening. Kati has outdone herself finding swell vittles for the veg. An appetizer of yoghurt, mayo, gelatin, thinly sliced carrot and cucumber formed into little bars, is followed by an entree of fried cauliflower heads and sun-dried peppers, stuffed with sharp cheese, and then breaded and fried. As has been mentioned before, they fry foods very lightly here, so it is refreshing but not too oily. Good stuff.