Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent
Pour partir; coeurs légers, semblables aux ballons,
De leur fatalité jamais ils ne s’écartent,
Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent toujours: Allons!
“Le Voyage,” Charles Baudelaire

We’ve spent the past few weeks scouring the Web and our ever-growing stacks of history and culture books to assemble what we feel (hope?) will be the best cross-section of palinka culture in Hungary — from producers to retailers to lovers to bloggers to, well, whomever wants to sit down and yap with us for a bit over a glass or two.  In a language we can understand, hopefully.  Mi nem beszélnek magyarul.

Here’s the map so far.  We’re especially excited about visiting Agardi, which makes some of the finest palinka we’ve tasted; there’s a curious palinka museum to the east of Budapest attached to a brewery that might prove interesting; and the list of palinka “knights” (complete with Middle Age-inspired outfits and pastoral gatherings and castles) surprisingly seems to grow.

View Plum Crazy: Hungary 2010 in a larger map

Our timing is good, too; one of the recently elected government’s campaign promises was to lift the ban on home distilling.  This promise made it into Fidesz’ economic plan, but there’s plenty of turmoil and controversy (and the legislative influence of the EU).  Yet it remains to be seen whether bread and circuses (or palinka and ethnic baiting) will keep Hungarians distracted from other, more pressing, issues.  There will be no shortage of things to talk about while at the bar…

Here is a Google map of Hungary with a few dozen palinka producers scattered across it. These seem to be the major commercial (in the broadest sense of the word) distilleries, ranging from extreme artisans such as Agárdi to large-scale operations such as Arany Kapu (Golden Gate) We may be doing this for other countries as well, if we can find the Internet resources to support the work.

If anybody knows of producers we’ve missed, let us know.

View Palinka Distilleries in a larger map