Zsolt Dömötör master distiller and co-owner of the 1Csepp Pálinka House in the rural and beautiful landscape of the Fertő – Hanság National Park reckons it was all by accident that they started the journey into the world of spirits.
Speaking with Zsolt in my latest Kielmayer Kris KörKép Podcast, available in Hungarian at Anchor, Spotify amongst many others; we cover the topics of:
- How the journey started
- 1Csepp Pálinka
- Beyond fruit, discovering beer and coffee
- E-Cars
- Zsolt’s desert island spirits
Find below an excerpt of the Podcast.
How the journey started
Unwittingly, says Zsolt as all good things in life. There are plenty of fortunate things that happen. The distillery is to be found in Hegykő in a beautiful rural environment. Zsolt’s cousin Gábor Pach who uses to run the Zimek distillery was the first who turned their attention to pálinka. “If Gábor can make pálinka so can I as well”. Confidence was important otherwise it would have been no point in starting the whole enterprise. Zsolt likes several spirits from rum to anise-based drinks as well.
While making fruit spirit is their main focus but they took on several projects over the years broadening the portfolio.
Pálinka does have a hard time and sometimes people create this for themselves. On one side there are lots of legal hurdles, lack of professional representation as well. I often wonder why pálinka is not more often featured in competitions but the rules for other fruit spirits in Europe may a little bit more relaxed when it comes to the use of sugar for instance. A bit of rounding-up may work wonders and make the liquid more appealing, smoother. With pálinka, it is strictly forbidden to add any sugar at any stage of production.
1Csepp Pálinka
The Distilling project started in 2013 and the distillery exists since 2015. It is a love child and for this reason, one will move a lot of strings, energy, money, and time. Zsolt says: we wanted to make something very good very quick! 2014 was the first competition and from 5 submitted samples 3 won gold, 2 silver and the rest is history, a year later they won Best Pálinka of Hungary with their late sour cherry Zenit grape Cuvée!
While winemakers in Hungary often grow their own grapes as well within the distilling community this is rather rare. There are two reasons why pálinka producers do not cultivate (but buy) their own fruit:
- it’s a different job, it demands different attention to detail and know-how
- You’ll have to use your fruit no matter how good or bad it is in the current year, hence there is a limitation involved.
Or in the case of 1Csepp this can be traced back to the pragmatic thought of Zsolt:
- we started the distillation late
- growing fruit needs time and patience, which we do not really have.
I recall the story that Zsolt and the team could not tell at the very beginning to the fruit supplier for what purpose do they need the raw material. Now they know that only the very best is accepted by the 1Csepp Distillery.
Apricot is a Hungarian specialty when it comes to fruit distillate and 1Csepp makes one of the finest. Tom Hanks tasted it in one of the top Hungarian Restaurants, and I hope that Barack (whose name is apricot or peach depending on how you translate) Obama will taste their Apricot Pálinka as well, as it’s certainly one of the finest in Hungary and beyond. They like to use several different apricot types (early and late ripening) having a careful blend, excellent mashing, and the perfect cutting point. Velvet-like texture with multi-layers and its luscious as you would bite into a superbly ripe apricot.
Exporting is difficult points out Zsolt, the administrative hurdles are huge. A little bit goes to Slovakia, Austria, and London. Their Irsai Olivér grape pálinka is much loved in cocktails as it has already a lot of aromas, flavours.
Beyond fruit, discovering beer and coffee
Project beer spirit was also rather by accident. Tamás Szilágyi from the Mad Scientist approached them and he reckoned if they can sell their spirit at this price it must be very good as well. The kick-off was with 300-liter beer and the outcome was superb. It’s all about the raw material, the beer in this instance, 1Csepp also works with Monyo. These are very special products, small quantity with very interesting aroma profile. There is no dry extract so they’re incredibly concentrated as well.
One of the new projects is Costa Rican gesha cascara with Piros Veltelini grape pálinka. Again this new item happened by accident as well. Attila Molnár who is the neighbor of Zsolt is the owner of the One Eleven Roaster and he approached him with the idea to do something together. The coffee fruit of a gesha variety from Costa Rica is put to bed with the award-winning Piros Veltelini grape pálinka. I have yet to try it myself, but Zsolt points out the grape character with the lovely blossom personality, fine tartness of the coffee followed by prune and fig.
E-Cars
Zsolt’s day-to-day job is to run a fleet of vehicles; he reckons the future will be electric cars, however. But currently, several issues around the battery like environmental friendliness and charging time and locations are still not making this widely available. Zsolt says if you do not run at least 100.000 km with the car you have not really made an impact. Yet there are many countries that incentives this and there will be more.
Zsolt’s desert island spirits
What would you take with you on a desert island was my questions? Zsolt was fairly quick on saying their 1Csepp sour cherry and quince, these are benchmarks for him.
From Brill the Jazmin grape pálinka and from Gábor Pach (aka fenegyerek) the mahaleb cherry with 60% abv. They all would be perfect at 18-20 °C.
