“Das ist ein unikum!”

We met Tamás at Zwack this morning for a tour and tasting. And it was fun!

Our guide, let’s call her Anna because that’s not her name, was adorable and 18. That’s drinking age in Hungary, so it was completely legal for her to be talking about liquor. She also confessed that her 19th birthday is right around the corner, and they will be drinking Unicum at the party.

The introductory 20-minute movie could’ve been a tidge shorter, but it gave us the extra minutes we needed because we arrived late. The most interesting part was the whole bit about how the factory was destroyed in the war and was rebuilt by the family over the course of an arduous 3 years. Whereupon the commies nationalized the factory. Mm hm....

Oh! And when one of the two brothers at the time (Béla) and his wife (Dodo) elected to stay and help run the newly nationalized distillery (albeit using a falsified recipe), the commies let them get everything up and running before declaring them bourgeoisie and sending them away to the country for three years.

Douche moves, both of them.

The story has a good ending, though, because family persevered. The other brother (János) went to the U.S. and worked to recreate the company using the actual recipe. He found financing, but at usurious rates. But it worked. They ultimately moved production to Italy because they love them some the bitter liquors in Italy.

Which means, by the way, there were two versions of the same liquor being marketed at that time—Italian and Hungarian. I can tell you from personal experience, though, that the Hungarian version from back then was the Worst. Liquor. Ever. Not only did it taste like ass, it clearly had actual poison in it. I swear.

Imagine if you will four perfectly innocent (well, mostly innocent) Americans in Sopron, Hungary, in 1991. It was Yvonne and Jim’s first time here. We went out to a local beer house for a Welcome to Hungary Dinner of salami, sausage, cheese, and bread. What we called “vegetarian” in Hungary back then because nothing was cooked.

I insisted on a round of “Hungary’s National Drink” even though I’d never had any myself. It came in four very small glasses, we “egészségedre”-d each other and tossed them back. As soon as our breath came back, we congratulated ourselves on being so “local” but agreeing that we wouldn’t ever need to drink that dreck again.

We laughed, we joked, we ate salami. And not five minutes later, Yvonne started plucking at the neck of her shirt and furiously fanning her face with her other hand, saying, “Good Lord, is anyone else having an acid flashback?”

Oh, we all were. And the rest of that night will live in infamy.

But back to today. The Zwack family was finally able to come back to Hungary and buy back their own property. Aww, sweet. And they still had The Secret Formula of 11 43 secret herbs and spices.

The rest is history, of course. The distillery now puts out about 3 millions liters of Unicum every year, only 2 million of which stay in Hungary. They really like their Unicum. So do we.

Unicum Ház, Dandár utca 1., Budapest. Tours Tuesday–Saturday 10–5