The pomace from Galicia, the cantueso from Alicante or the herbs from Mallorca are some examples of the wide variety of drinks with PGI that exist in Spain. A total of 19 products have this quality mark, but some of these liquors are still unknown to many Spaniards.
In order to make them known to the general population, Spirits Spain launched the Journalistic Awards on Geographical Indications of Spiritual Beverages last year, in collaboration with the Conference of Regulatory Councils on Geographical Indications of Spiritual Beverages and the Spanish Association of Journalists and Wine Writers. Now, the winners of the first edition have been announced, among whom is the journalist and collaborator of the Comer channel, Rosa Molinero.
His article Herbal liquors, the landscape in a bottle, has been awarded in the PGI category belonging to Catalonia for mentioning ratafía. You can read the text below:
In times of fire, forests make the news, although too late: it is the continued abandonment that usually causes them. The majority of the population lives with its back to the forest and everything that caring for it offers, be it forgotten fruits such as sips or rose hips, or aromatic herbs that have different applications. Precisely, in Spain the production of different liqueurs from native herbs that are distinguished with the recognition of Protected Geographical Indication is still alive: the Catalan ratafia (Catalonia), the herbero from the Sierra de Mariola (Valencian Community), the liqueur herbs from Galicia, herbes from Mallorca and Ibizan herbs.
“The history of liquors, especially in the Mediterranean, is linked to the development of the medieval pharmacopoeia,” explains Deborah Piña, cook and gastronomic disseminator specialized in traditional foods. “With the appearance of distilled alcohol, which the Arabs discovered around the 9th century and which arrived in Europe in the 13th century by Arnau de Vilanova, ancient medicinal preparations saw their useful life lengthen. While previously infusions or decoctions of medicinal herbs had to be consumed in about two or three days, now alcohol allowed for long conservation in addition to acting as an extractor of its properties.”
This is how the first liqueurs and bitters appeared, some already mythical such as Agua del Carmen or Chartreuse, Piña points out, produced by the medical establishment, in the monasteries. “Little by little, these drinks are becoming popular, reaching rural areas and the peasantry, particularly in Mallorca, begins to prepare them at home. They will continue to maintain the medicinal aura and, in fact, these drinks are like digestive tonics or stomach tonics, since the herbs that make up the hard core of the Mallorcan herbes have in common being very beneficial for the digestive system.”
“The preparation of herbes is in itself a ritual and a celebration. For me, it is part of the great gastronomic rituals that still survive on the island, along with the slaughter of the pig and the making of Easter panades. It is a time of family gathering, since this type of laborious tasks are more enjoyable to do if several people get together and go to the field or garden to collect all the herbs, spread them on the table, clean them and refill the bottles.” explains Piña.
María Solivellas, chef at the Ca Na Toneta restaurant (Caimari, Mallorca), explains that in her restaurant they make their own liqueur from Mallorcan herbs, collecting them when they are at their peak, with the new moon in May. “In each area of ??Mallorca, certain ingredients are added according to their availability, to which each person’s inventiveness is added. “We, for example, add green walnut because we have a walnut tree nearby.” For the cook, more is more in herbal liquor: the more types of herbs, the more nuances the liquor will have, which can be sweet, dry or mixed depending on the anise used – although it indicates that a distilled alcohol will give it a flavor. more pure. “The day we make them is a magical day: preparing them has an alchemical feel and is very much a ritual.”
Its consumption, according to Piña, is popular. Far from being taken as medicine, today a glass of herbs follows coffee: “coffee and a drink all year round, at any meal and any occasion,” says the expert, although she points out that creative cocktails are also using it in the present. Its flavor differs greatly, the cook specifies, between the homemade and the commercial ones, since the latter limit the variety of herbs used, although both have fennel in common as their main flavor, with which Solivellas agrees: “fennel is the emblem of our island.” “Although the PGI specifies that about 7 specific herbs must be used (fennel, chamomile, lemon verbena, lemon leaves, lemon balm, orange leaves and rosemary) it does not limit the incorporation of others. You can have recipes with 7 or 35 ingredients. Thus, it is never the same product, but in the collective imagination the flavor and color have been standardized due to commercial brand products,”
Producing them at home, says Piña, is something rooted in Mallorca but in disuse. “I think it is very important to maintain the tradition of making Mallorcan herbes at home. Making them is for me a moment of respect for nature, of connection, of knowledge of the environment, of following the natural rhythm of the plants, and this is something that has always been good for human beings. The more we can maintain experiences of connection with the environment, especially if they are linked to the cultural tradition of a place, the better. They are treasures that we must preserve due to their double natural and cultural side,” reflects Piña.
“Personally, preparing herbes at home seems to me to be an act that has almost dissident value, since it allows us to move away from the standardization and industrialization of taste. Because making herbes means collecting what you have close to home, and macerating it and waiting and savoring what you have produced yourself, which will be tremendously personal and different from those made even by your neighbor, than those made in Artà, Sineu or Esporles. . This is a brutal cultural and heritage wealth and if we let the recipes disappear, a part of the culture disappears with them. We must maintain and honor ancestral knowledge and nature, its gifts and its generosity.”
“Towards the 16th century, apothecaries dispensed their herbal potions based on distilled wine alcohol,” says Matías Iriarte, bartender and co-owner of Ginbo y Chapeau 1987, in Palma de Mallorca. “Later, in the 18th century, when anise was extremely popular and available to the entire population, it was mixed with aromatic plants to turn it into a digestive elixir based on the recipes of those remedies sold by apothecaries.” It would not be until the end of the 19th century that the industry would begin to produce these liquors, both in Mallorca and in Ibiza and Formentera.
Despite what it may seem due to the geographical and cultural proximity of the two islands, and as Piña already explained, Mallorcan herbs and Ibizan herbs have their differences. For Iriarte, there are two essential differences: on the one hand, the herbs available on each island are different; on the other, the proportions in which the dry anise is mixed with the sweet one, also different between Mallorcan and Ibizan recipes. This interferes, of course, with its flavor: “in both cases, we find an aniseed liquor with a very present aromatic load, where fennel, anise, thyme and rosemary stand out, a combination that brings us closer to an aroma and a very Mediterranean flavor and reminiscent of the landscapes of the islands.” Specifically, the bartender details, the most common herbs in the Ibizan case are fennel, thyme, rosemary, lemon verbena, lavender, rue, chamomile, juniper, mint and the leaves and peel of lemon and of the orange.
Logically, harvesting is also recommended in Ibiza between May and June, “and they are usually ready to try during the slaughter season, that is, the slaughter of the pig, which begins with the first cold of winter, around December and January. ”. For Iriarte, the homemade preparation of Ibizan herbs is a tradition that has been in the life of the Pitiusos for centuries and that contributes to gastronomic culture: “the magic that family recipes continue to exist supports diversity and in turn the dissemination of knowledge of the aromatic herbs that form our landscapes, and that are undoubtedly an identifying cultural component of the Ibizan people and, by extension, the Balearic Islands.”
Javier Caballero, bartender and advisor, indicates a fundamental fact to differentiate the spirit from the herbal liqueur: while the spirit must use 100% pomace, the herbal liqueur can be prepared with any other type of alcohol. “This greatly defines the profile of the product, since with the pomace brandy we are going to have a full-bodied product where, behind the background of herbs and sugar, the pomace notes will appear, with its very special character.”
Caballero knows that pomace well, since he dedicated a documentary to it with his partner, Sheila Osorio, called Chronicles of a Journey to the Origin of Flavor. Marc liquor. “We seek to highlight different traditional drinks, including this one, which is one of the oldest in the world. I think it is not given the space it culturally deserves and one could even say that it is a vilified product. However, both herbal liquor and coffee liquor, unlike pomace liquor, continue to have a place in Galician after-dinner meals and many young people are supporting their consumption although, in my opinion and in general, the consumption of herbal liquor is being lost. traditional beverages”.
The Sierra de Mariola has the category of protected Natural Park, straddling the provinces of Alicante and Valencia. However, it could also be said that it belongs to a territory known as Diània, a macro-region whose limits were established by the doctor and ethnobotanist Joan Pellicer i Bataller, author of books such as Costumari botànic (Farga, 2020), where the environment and its use by inhabitants that populate it defined those cultural and landscape borders.
Herbero is born from the combination of its herbs with anise, a liquor based on digestive and anti-inflammatory plants. “The flavor of herbero is like aniseed, since dry and sweet anise is mixed to macerate the plants,” explains Ferran Albors, a lover of traditional plants with more than 30 years of experience behind him and author of a book about the Sierra de Mariola: L’embruix de la Mariola i els seus voltants. Experiences and traditions (Cocetaina City Council, 2018). “If we add 100% dried anise, which here we call cassella, we will do it as it has always been done in the Condado de Cocentaina region, and it will have a strong flavor. The proportions will vary both in flavor and graduation, and may be between 25º and 40º.
In Albors’ opinion, “we must maintain all traditions.” In the case of the herbalist, he comments that it was a great experience for him to “learn knowledge about herbs from older people as a child, not only for making liqueurs, but for the home remedies to which they are linked. We must contribute together to defend the tradition of making herbero to be able to continue enjoying it, savoring it and, above all, to be able to continue looking at this paradise that is the mountains of Mariola, but also those of Aitana, Serrella and Benicadell.”
José Vicente Verdú, who has been making herbal medicine at home for decades and shared it on Twitter months ago, comments that it is very possible that until not so long ago this liquor was the medicine of people of humble origins. “Without a doubt, it was a way to preserve the properties that herbs have in the spring throughout the year.”
For him, the herbalist concentrates many perfumes and flavors, as many as there are herbs and, as is the case with Mallorcan herbs, there can be many more than those established by the regulations of his IGP, which says the following: “a minimum of four of the following plants: sage, chamomile, pennyroyal, lemon verbena, holy thistle root, peppermint, cat’s tail, fennel, anise, lemon balm, agrimony, savory, zamarilla, St. William’s wort, thyme and cantueso” – it is not It is surprising that Verdú comments that maintaining its tradition can help add value to the surroundings of these mountains. The document also includes aspects about harvesting (“at its maximum flowering, washed and air-dried in cool, dry places with little light”) and its production, which can be by distillation (“the alcohol can be distilled directly, the plants and the anise grain, or a previously prepared maceration thereof”) or by maceration (“the plants will be introduced into a hydroalcoholic solution of 60% minimum volume, kept for a minimum period of ten days”).
Along with Penedès brandy, ratafía is the other Catalan liquor that has PGI. Its production in 2021 was estimated at 43,956 liters, behind other herbal liqueurs mentioned here, such as Mallorcan herbs (1,073,532 liters), Ibizan herbs (433,994 liters) or Galicia herbal liqueur (154,162 liters). or the Galician herbal brandy (7,725) –herbero production does not have data registered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Its export is one of the lowest among these national herbal liqueurs, with 0.2% of the total production, whose figures are headed by Mallorcan herbs and Ibizan herbs. However, the ratafía has been refreshed in recent years with the incorporation of brands into the market that target a younger audience and/or those with more passion for gastronomy.
But what is ratafia? This dark and dense drink, according to the conditions required by its IGP, registered by the Unió de Licoristes de Catalunya and the Spanish Liquor Union, is a liquor “made by hydroalcoholic maceration basically of green walnuts (minimum content of Juglans fruits regia L.: 10 g/l finished product) – which must macerate for a minimum of three months – and the incorporation of a mixture of aromatic plants (it must necessarily include lemon verbena, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg).” The graduation will range between 24º and 30º and its sugar proportion will be between 100 g and 400 g per liter. The product, once the liquids have been decanted, the sugar added and the graduation corrected by adding alcohol and/or water, must age for a minimum of three months in wood. Its flavor is difficult to express: it tastes like green walnuts, an ingredient that rarely anyone has tried, since its raw consumption is toxic to humans. It is sweet, aromatic and herbal, with quite a presence of the typical flavors of anise and fennel.
As with the rest of the drinks mentioned, “ratafia is the fruit of the ingenuity of some monks, specifically, the Carthusian monks of Tarragona, who devised it as a remedy that would later become popular among the peasantry, first in the area and later throughout Catalonia,” explains David Urgell, expert in liquors and distillates. “Each farmhouse, starting from the green walnut, represented in the ratafia or ratia (name it receives in El Pallars) the varieties of herbs from the area.” Thus, in 1842 the first formulation was registered in Girona, in the name of Francisco Rosquellas, and in 1892 Anna Peroliu’s recipe began to be marketed through the company of her husband, Faustí Bosch. “At that time, the decline of homemade ratafia began, since the rural environment was abandoned for the industrial cities and it became something reviled for being a drink of peasants – who were also reviled. “Its recent rebirth and recovery of the industry, accompanied by the creation of new unique products that do not follow the usual formulas of high sweetness and a lot of anise flavor,” says Urgell, has to do with the trends of the late 20th century and early 20th century. XXI to look again at what our grandparents did and to practice ‘do it yourself’.
“Tradition dictates that the collection must be done on the night of San Juan, for San Pedro the ratafia is made, for the Assumption of the Virgin it is bottled and for all the saints it is filtered and left to taste at Christmas or immediately,” Urgell says. “It has a link with the religious calendar and its festivities which, in turn, is linked to the rhythms of nature, since the nut remains green due to its harvest date and that is when it can best be macerated. In addition, it is left for 40 days in the sun and calm so that it undergoes temperature changes that cause the maceration to have agitation, contraction, expansion and oxygenation.” You can look for many variables of flavor and refinement in each of the processes and complicate them as much as you want, says Urgell, both in the harvesting (where fifty herbs can participate) and in the maceration (depending on the alcoholic strength, the temperature, time and oxygen involved), among others. Regarding their collection, a series of good practices have been imposed to care for and respect the environment, since there are some of them that are protected, says Urgell. “For example, attention is paid to how to cut the plants and that only a proportion should be taken so as not to destroy the landscape.”
Of course – and despite its name – its ingredients do not include any part of the rat. According to the legend told by the poet Jacint Verdaguer, the liquor was baptized by the bishops of Vic and Barcelona and by the archbishop of Tarragona. The three were in an inn with the intention of signing a treaty and asked for something to drink. A thick mahogany liqueur arrived at the table without presentation: “it has no name, it’s something we do around here,” the waiter would tell him. “Well, we will call it rat fiat (signed),” the ecclesiastics invented.
