Great-grandfather passed it to grandfather, grandfather to our father, and our father to us. Now it's our children's turn.
Plum rakija. From Maleševo.
Distilled in copper over a wood fire, left for years in oak — to great-grandfather's recipe.
Meet the spirits Read the story
Rusinovo, Maleševo, Berovo
Spirits
Five years. Ten years. And one for winter.
The same Maleševo plums, three ways.
The Burovski family
Some recipes are never written down. They are remembered.
Maleševo
What goes into a glass.
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Rusinovo
A village near Berovo.
The house is here, and so is the rakija. When we say Maleševo, we mean right here.
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Fruit
First, the plum.
Before it's rakija, it's just fruit on a branch. Everything that follows — the fire, the years, the glass — depends on it.
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Craft
The old way.
The way grandfather learned it from his own father. Nobody in the house looks for a faster way — a faster way wouldn't be the same.
Time
Time can't be bought.
DOMAŠNA spends five years in oak. MALEŠEVEC, ten. Neither comes any faster.
Burovski
The rest is in the bottle.
This is where words stop. After this, it's the glass — and the people you share it with.
