Saturday 16 November 2013

Dark arts on dark nights

The first look into the mysteries of the distilling process
Mysterious rights are being performed in sheds and cellars in the dark evenings as the autumn mists swirl around the village. Fires are lit under cauldrons, pungent fluids bubble, steam swirls and liquids drip and splatter. This is the season when 40 litres of mushed pears can be turned into one litre of pure alcohol – schnapps.

Schnapps brennen, or distilling, has all the hallmarks of alchemy, a dark art where the results remain a mystery until completion of the process. Our village postman is nervous.  He is no warlock, but busies himself with preparations in his distillery, lighting the wood fire under his still and giving the brown mash a final stir with a huge wooden spoon, looking for all the world as if he is about to cast a spell.
 
Loading the 40 litres of fermented pear mash 
After the harvest of fruits and berries, the fermented mash is prepared. An average pear tree produced the 40 litres of brown liquid that is now poured through the porthole into the still. The door, like that on a submarine, is closed and sealed with a spinning handle.
 
The fire is lit and the brew is sealed into the copper cauldron
Tension mounts as the mash warms and begins to shift uneasily in its copper cauldron. Through the portholes above, the first signs of steam are beginning to appear. Clear liquids drip and splutter. More wood goes into the fire, the temperature rises, the mash bubbles and froths. Alcohol turns into steam before water, so the steam rising into the condensers above is pure alcohol. Here it cools and before long the first drops plink into the bottom of a glass.

At first the liquid has a faint smell of glue, but as the process continues, the alcohol content rises and the fruity smell comes to the fore. The early results drop into numbered glasses, one, two, three … by the time we reach glass seven, we have the best quality schnapps. The results still have to be monitored to stop the collecting before the last final flow that again lacks the fruity nose of the best schnapps.

Shifting uneasily and beginning to foam, the mash is warming up
40 litres into one litre of pure undrinkable alcohol: watered down the pear tree has rendered two litres of quality schnapps. The postman relaxes, tastes, approves, labels his bottles and prepares for more distilling next day.
Pure alcohol steam condensing into purest schnapps
This is no moonshine, it is legal, controlled and limited. No doubt, the dark art has many forms and has been practised for centuries. It is likely that each family distilling in the village prides themselves on producing the best. The results will be ready to drink by the time of the next dark tradition at the end of this month….
Testing the first drop
Catching the flow of the real stuff

Sunday 3 November 2013

Old traditions are not dead

November 3: as dismal a day as you could imagine. Driving rain, low cloud, snow line creeping down the mountain towards us. Not a soul in sight. The last leaves are being scattered by the wind. Even the cattle have retreated to the stalls – not a cowbell can be heard.

We plod through the village churchyard where two days ago there was a buzz of activity and conversation. On All Souls Day, Austrians travel back to the village of their origin to visit the graves of relatives long, and more recently gone. Each family brings a Gesteck – an arrangement of heathers, dried flowers and plants to place on the graves.

It is not only a time to remember the dead, but also a time when acquaintances are renewed with friends and family not seen since last November 1st, a time to catch up on family news…and to see how much older everyone looks. Is it true that old people like to see that others are wearing worse than they themselves are?

November 3: not a single grave in the cemetery which surrounds the church is without its Gesteck – some more elaborate, even gaudy compared with those which only comprise living heathers. On every grave there is at least one candle burning, now deep into it’s glowing red container.

The headstones tell of a tight and stable community: a handful of surnames appear time and time again. Faded, sepia pictures of the long departed in tiny oval frames on headstones show stolid, uncomplicated folk bearing family resemblances through the generations. Longevity is taken for granted in Embach though there are a few tiny graves of babies and children who died long ago and before their time, but are still remembered.

After church, to the music of the village band, families beat a retreat to their homes where the fat is chewed, the experiences of the past year compared, the future considered. This is a time for a tradition far older than the graves themselves, for longstanding families to reaffirm their roots here on this usually sunny plateau surrounded by meadows and mountains. Long may it last.

(On this day, it was so wet and dismal, that it was not possible to take any photographs to go with this blog)