Hungary’s legendary Zwack family – the producers of Unicum bitters since it was first created as a medicine in 1790 – decided to enhance their trademark tipple by adding some black honey and Tokaji wine to it, and maturing it in two different types of barrels. The result is Unicum Riserva, a new limited-edition, super-premium liqueur. We visited Budapest’s Zwack Museum and Visitor Center to taste this compelling concoction.
The current generation of Zwack family members running the distillery, siblings Izabella and Sándor, introduced their new limited-edition, super-premium herbal liqueur, Unicum Riserva, in an intimate atmosphere, during a private event in the Zwack Museum and Visitor Center on Budapest’s Dandár Street. One million liters of Unicum is aged in barrels in the cellar system, just below visitors’ feet, we learned – including the new variety. Izabella and Sándor created the luxurious, bitter specialty through years of hard work: the liqueur essentially combines the brother’s knowledge of spices and herbs with the sister’s passion for Tokaji wines. The new product, which has been available at some Budapest restaurants since January, will be available in stores beginning in May, and is expected to cost around 9-10,000 forints per bottle.
According to the Zwack siblings, the uniqueness of Riserva comes from its double-barrel aging. The original Unicum is first aged in an 80-year-old, 16,000-liter barrel in the Zwack cellar on Soroksári Road. This is where the liqueur gets its most characteristic flavor, the essence of eight decades: the “black honey”. The second phase of the aging process requires the Tokaji wine barrels of
Gönc: this is where the super-premium liqueur’s botrytis effect comes from. Finally, Riserva is completed by adding 6-puttony Tokaji wine made in 2007 in Izabella Zwack’s winery, Dobogó Winery. Interestingly, riserva is a term given to a specific wine to imply that is of a higher quality than usual, some of which is “reserved” instead of being sold immediately – in this case, the term refers to the hidden recesses of the cellar system that only these siblings have access to.
Tasting this luxurious Unicum, we can savor both the bittersweetness of the original spices and the characteristic, complex, fruity-sweet aroma of the Tokaji wine. Since Riserva is heavily defined by barrel-aging just like whiskey and cognac, we just had to taste it on ice, as well – and we weren’t disappointed with the result. Thanks to the slowly melting ice, the drink obtains a creamy texture, which makes it great to accompany similarly creamy desserts, like panna cotta. The herbal liqueur can also be nicely paired with red-onion jam or fruit pâtés, wild meats, or beef cheek au jus. If you’re planning on getting acquainted with bitters, Riserva might just be the most delicious choice for acquiring a taste for this type of liqueur.On the official Zwack website, we can already order a
0.7-liter bottle of Unicum Riserva for 8,799 forints. The company plans to put 13,000 bottles on the market every year.
