If You want to taste one of the traditional polish liquor You have to try some nalewka (alcoholic tincture). Old Polish liquers (very popular to this day) taste both: the woman (especially those one from fruits and made sweet) and men (herbal and dry ones). Typical nalewka contains about 40%-45% of alcohol but it's not something extraordinary to find one with 70%-80% of alcohol.

Author:Halibutt under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0

In Polish tradition, tinctures were made by matrons and sometimes by men. Every Polish noble house had basement full of this liquors. Why? Because it was in tradition, that every guest should be treat with glass full of nalewka. After mead (wine like drink from honey), nalewka was the second one most known Polish drink. Another cause of nalewka popularity was that nalewka was considered (not only in Poland, but all over the world) to have medicinal properties. For example tincture from walnuts was given in stomach ache.

Nalewkas recipes were inherited from generation to generation. Sometimes it was because families were proud of their tinctures and sometime, because some of liquors had to be made more than 15 years. There were known polish tinctures which had to ripen more than human lifetime. Nowadays tradition of making Polish Nalewka waned a little. Still, there are some manufactures and families which made this liquor and it could be even bought in the shops, but a lot of people drink beer, wine and vodka rather than nalewki.

Author: Ratomir Wilkowski under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

Polish Nalewka can be found here - in online shop one of the most known small manufacturer from village near Warsaw.

Tommorow we wright how to make one of the traditional Nalewka. So don't miss it.