Hats off to Slovakia!

There are two reasons to celebrate and take your hat off here these days. The first is the Slovak Olympic hockey team which is undefeated so far as they go into the quarter-finals against their old rivals, the Czechs, who are in 4th place in their division. Tension is high, but the celebration if there is success tonight will be unprecedented. They are already saying this could be the biggest game in Slovak history.

And it’s just not the hockey team that’s hot. The weather is, too. All week the temperatures have been above freezing and our meter of snow is eagerly turning into a lake. But, for the first time this year there is ground to be seen and smelled.

So, Hell’s put of the competition and Satan, tonight, will be the king!

(FYI, Hell is the Italian Goalkeeper and Satan, pronounced Sha-tan, is one of Slovakia’s key players…)

How to make Jablkovica

If there is anything that is Slovak, it's their alochol, mainly the brandys that they distill from the fruits in their garden. Slivovica, (plum brandy) is the most popular, followed by Jablkovica (apple brandy) and borovica (made from juniper berries). But, you can make the brandy out of anything, but I think they were joking when they said pineapple and bananas.

This weekwnd I had the chance to go to the village and help make a batch of apple brandy. The works not hard (though it is somewhat smelly) and the results are created in about 5 hours.


First you bring your batch of chopped up apples down to the distillery and load them into the holding bins.




Next, they load your batch of apples and cook them and cool them.


At the last cooling stage, you can check the alcohol content. It will start around 70% and by the end of the batch be at around 20%. Finally, your finished product comes out.



Time to fill up your bottles and bring them home.


We made 33 liters on Saturday out of nothing but apples. The Slovaks have been making these fruit brandys for hundreds of years and are therefore allowed to continue distilling under the cultural exemption from the EU. It's a great process, watching it being made. Too bad I can't stand the taste...