Hello from eastern Europe!

[Oldferal]

Hello, all! We recently moved to eastern Europe bordering the Balkans. One of the many mind-blowing advantages of this area is that distilling fruit and grape brandies isn’t just _legal_ (at non-commercial amounts), but _traditional_, back to the Middle Ages here. Most family farms around here have a still, usually a big one heated over a wood fire distilling mash from fermented fruit, so it’s basically free for them to make.

(I am now wondering if all that mysterious medieval alchemy was really just making a kind of liquid gold, and if you couldn’t transform tin into gold, you could at least transform fruit into brandy and sell it for gold.)

I’m not ready to tackle wood fires as our astonishing neighbors do, so last summer I cheated and got a 5-gallon Vevor (I know) and an induction hotplate that can be used outside, barely big enough for the Vevor. (I did all the vinegar runs, etc..) The belated, much-mourned cherry brandy from last summer (known as Rakija or Češnje Žganje) was excellent.

The Vevor’s tiny condenser pot was annoying, though, so I recently replaced it with a 5-gallon bucket and a longer copper coil, as per an online video. This works much better, and the water stays cool longer.

Now I’m making brandy from some rather good extra (Lol, extra!) white wine from the plentiful little vineyards around here. I’m hoping to age it on some oak cubes or chips. If it’s good enough to count as vinjak (the Balkan term for liquor like cognac but not from that fancy legally required area in Cognac, France), I’ll give some to family and neighbors.

I’m not yet fluent in Slavic languages, which are insanely complicated, so I can’t learn the traditional techniques from the neighbors yet. And given that their traditional home remedies can make absinthe look like warm milk, I’d like to know in detail what I’m doing and what I’m serving to friends.

So I’m here, reading more, and possibly needing to ask questions later if I can’t find answers here already. Thanks so much for the valuable info here!