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 is an exception, in part because the location is far enough away from Budapest that it takes some planning, and because there is always so much damn booze involved, including both Magyar-made pálinka and competing forms of rotgut from all over the world. According to local news portal kapos.hu, a total of 858 types of pálinka and pálinka-like distilled spirits have been submitted for a competition to be held at this year’s festival, including entrants from as far away as Armenia, China and Australia.
The submissions are currently being “evaluated” by a 30-member “professional jury,” and winners the will be announced at an awards ceremony on April 17 and then “displayed” at the Museum of Agriculture in Budapest during the third annual Saint Nicholas Pálinka Celebration in December.
Left unsaid is how having all this foreign booze fits in with the whole movement to convince people that pálinka is a hungarikum. It’s also not clear whether the flown-in hooch will be available for tasting in Gyula, meaning you may have to get by on just a few hundred different types if you actually make it to the festival – not, hopefully, by car.
