The tradition of previous years continued this year, with the Ministry of Agriculture selecting the best pálinka in the country.
Many great name quality pálinkas were beaten out by the Lunczer Pálinkaház, which won the Ministry of Agriculture's pálinka of the year award.
Lunczer is a family distillery established in the year of the 1st National Pálinka Excellence Programme in the village of Kosd in the Danube Bend. The award-winning spirit is the result of years of high quality work, learning and experimentation," Márton Nobilis, Minister of State for Food Industry and Trade Policy of the Ministry of Agriculture, added in the statement.
"Thanks to the work of the commercial pálinka distilleries, we can now think of a high-quality, true gastronomic specialty when it comes to pálinka, one of our nation's outstanding products and one of our Hungarikums," said the State Secretary at the gala awards ceremony of the National Pálinka Excellence Programme in the capital.
The Ministry of Agriculture first announced the programme in 2014, with the aim of making Hungarian quality pálinka known and recognized on the domestic and foreign markets.
According to Márton Nobilis, this year's National Pálinka Excellence Programme was announced in the autumn, and 16 pálinka houses entered a total of 103 preselected pálinka varieties. He added that the figures also show that despite the pandemic and the difficult economic situation caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war, the programme is becoming increasingly popular among commercial breweries. Based on the opinion of the professional jury, 67 batches from 13 Pálinka houses were finally qualified for the 2022 National Pálinka Excellence Programme. Of these, 49 batches were awarded the Pálinka Excellence label and 18 batches were awarded the TOP Pálinka Excellence label.