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 amount for personal consumption. Distilling your own pálinka is illegal under a law enacted in 2004, and in order to make pálinka from your own homegrown fruit, you would have to take it to a licensed distiller, and only after paying all taxes and fees can you collect what you could have just made at home.
130 home operations were shut down by authorities last year, revealing that the ban has not stopped many, Jenő Sipos of the Hungarian Customs and Finance Guard announced. He added that unregulated distilleries could lead to injuries and death from shoddily constructed distillers, not to mention poor quality pálinka.
László Piros of the Magyar Pálinka Lovagrend (“Order of Hungarian Pálinka Knights”) echoed Sipos’s statement that it would result in a drop in quality. He continued that “if Hungary was a law-abiding country as opposed to the current nation of tax cheats that it is”, he would support considering the law change, but as things stand now there was no point to it.
Currently there are seventy commercial distilleries in Hungary, and five hundred distilleries that allow people to make their own pálinka. Estimates are that 30% of pálinka in Hungary was illegally produced.
All my neighbours nowadays take their fruit to the distillery, even though it’s expensive for them, at least they can sell that palinka to people like me or to restaurants.
I tried some home brewed palinka last year from someone who wanted to sell it (really cheap) – but it was horrible. I’ve heard that he even had difficulties to sell it to one of the village kocsmas – it’s so bad.
It’s similar with the wine here. Some guys put quantity before quality, they’d sell you a liter wine for 200 forints – but it’s undrinkable.
My neighbours ask 300 for a really nice dry olaszriszling or zöld szilvani, that’s ok. I drink it here and each time I take about 60 liters to Germany for my friends there …
So I don’t think it’s a good idea what Fidesz proposes, but of course the upcoming elections …
you gotta be kidding… everyone I know in the city and the next
makes their own home brew from what they get from the garden.
Oh well…
@mike: And have you sampled their products ? You’re still alive …
Respect for Mr Piros who tells it like it is.