I recently attended a palnika tasting at The Caledonia with Patrick McMenamin from Caledonia, David Hall from British Pantry, David Trayford of Baby Blue Banana, and Rob Longworth from Legends. Arpad Palinka is a small family-run business based in Bekescsaba. It is so family-run, that the grandmother does the bottling! But, they certainly seem to know their marketing - especially the packaging. The company produces four main lines; the Arpad Kisusti (pot-still), Vadasz (hunter), Arpad Premium and Arpad Honey Liqueurs. They use 100% Hungarian fruit. Even after 20+ years of getting blitzed on Hungarian schapps, I still learned a lot. For example, one should not put palinka in the fridge or freezer since this causes it lose its flavor and only an alcohol taste remains. Only dried fruit is used in making "agyas" palinka, since fresh fruit would rot in the bottle. The name "palinka" is now protected at the EU-level, must contain 100% Hungarian fruit, and the alcohol level must remain between 37.5-52%. Therefore, honey palinka is now no longer palinka but classified as a liquour. They avoid producing palinka of more than 40% alcohol, since above that one loses the fruit aromas. The high and low alcohol content palinka is disposed of and used in industrial cleaners. It is all a bit blurry now, but we tasted around ten varieties.

The Vadasz line is packaged in nice large hip-flask-like bottles.

Arpad Vadasz Plum Palinka - 45% alcohol, this is their best palinka and won the gold medal in 2010. Arpad mostly uses plums of the Lapotica variety. Lapotica plums originate in Serbia, and can be recognised by their "frosty" like skin (you leave fingerprints).

Arpad Vadasz Sloe Palinka -100kg of sloe produce 1.5 liters of 80% palinka that is then diluted with water to bring the alcohol level back down to 40%.

Arpad Kisusti Csabai Home-Made Plum Palinka - 40% alcohol, uses a mix of Stanley and Lapotica plums. Won the gold medal in 2010 at the Bekescsaba Sausage Festival.

Arpad Kisusti Apple - 40% alcohol, I loved the sharp almond scent but mild taste.

Arpad Kisusti Sour Cherry - 40% alcohol, uses 3 types of cherries.

Arpad Kisusti Quince - 40% alcohol, old women using special gloves must first rub the fur off the skin of the fruit. Silver medal winner in 2010.

The Arpad Premium line is gorgeous in its old, heavy perfume bottle-like packaging.

Premium Purple Sour Cherry - 40% alcohol, uses just "gypsy" cherries.

Premium Wild Blackberry - 40% alcohol. I liked this one a lot.

On the more exotic side, but not at the tasting, they also produce dogberry (som) and wild strawberry palinkas.

If you collect 12 bottles with the caps, you can mix and match, and get a free bottle of Kisusti Plum palinka. Unfortunately, they can only recycle the bottles and not reuse them. Some law forbids this, which is hard to understand since cola, beer and wine bottles are refillable. Furthermore, the 40%+ alcohol certainly helps to decontaminate the bottles.