Slippery Tipples by Joseph Piercy

Author:Joseph Piercy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752496856
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

COCKTAIL RECIPES

Head in the Clouds

2.5cl Mastichato

2.5cl Blue Curaçao

2.5cl Baileys Irish Cream

Stir the Mastichato together with the Curacao and then float the Baileys on the top by pouring over the back of a chilled teaspoon.

Hot Greek Martini

2.5cl Mastichato

2.5cl vodka

5cl tonic

star anise

Stir the Mastichato and vodka, top up with tonic and float a star anise on the top as a garnish.

HUNGARY

Unicum Zwack

DESCRIPTION: Herb-based liqueur made from a blend of over forty different herbs and spices, usually drunk ice cold as a digestif or mixed in cocktails.

BACKGROUND: When in 1790 Dr Jozsef Zwack, royal physician to the Habsburg dynasty, was summoned by the dying Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, he could scarcely have anticipated the impact he was about to make on future events in Hungarian history. The emperor, bedridden and crippled with stomach cramps, pleaded with Dr Zwack to give him something to alleviate the pain. The good doctor produced a herbal remedy he had been working on, probably more out of desperation than anything else and, to his astonishment, the emperor is reputed to have sat bolt up right in bed and cried ‘Das est ein unikum!’ (‘This is unique!’). The legend of Unicum was born.

Fifty years passed before the drink was formally put into commercial production by the grandson of Dr Zwack (also named Jozsef) who founded J. Zwack and Co., Hungary’s first and therefore oldest distillery. Jozsef Zwack oversaw the growth of the company which expanded rapidly throughout the ninteenth century to become one of the leading liquor producers in Central Europe and continued to monitor every aspect of the company up to his death in 1915 at the ripe old age of 95 (Jozsef put his good health and longevity down to his twice daily ‘tot’ of Unicum). The reins of the family business passed first to Jozsef’s son Lajos and then to Lajos’ sons Bela and Janos.

The Zwack brand continued to prosper up until the Second World War when the factory was destroyed in the siege of Budapest. In 1948, the occupying Russians nationalised the business and Janos Zwack and his son Peter fled the country with the ‘secret’ recipe (see below), taking refuge in the United States. Bela remained behind and provided the communists with a counterfeit Zwack for the rebuilt state-owned factory. After several months on Ellis Island, Janos and Peter were granted US citizenship – apocryphally said to have been on the strength of holding the secret recipe. During the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and its aftermath, Peter Zwack travelled across America raising funds for the 200,000 refuges of the conflict and spreading awareness of the plight of his fellow countrymen.

As the communist regime began to crumble in the late 1980s, a popular movement started in Hungary to bring Unicum back home from the US, where the original formula had been kept in a safe deposit box in a New York bank for nearly forty years. In 1989, Peter Zwack returned to Budapest and bought the company out of state ownership. A returning champion of

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