Do you know the name of the smallest city in the world? AND do you know what is "BISKA"
Is it a city.. really?
Hum is a little town in central Istria with only about 20 people listed living there. I've met 7 of them. Who among you can say that you know one-third of residents of one town? Well in this town that wasn't that much of a deal.Hum is officially the smallest city in the world.There are only two streets with three rows of houses there. Whole city is located on top of the hill and surrounded by city walls like many of the other small towns in central Istria.The folk legend goes that the Giants when building the other cities in the region had some leftover stones so they made a miniature city.
What can you do in Hum?
- stroll around the city and enjoy the views
- take some really cool photos
- sit in a bar get some local finger food a glass of wine and chill
- take a look at the souvenir shops
- Anywhere they offer you a drink try one (that one will get you wasted)
Apart from being the smallest city is known for?
Hum is known for "Biska brandy" it's the type of brandy that's is made from the grape residue that is left in the process of making a wine called "Komovica". After it's brewed you get a 50% or more strong alcohol brandy that is then mixed with three types of herbs and a mistletoe.Original recipe is more than 2000 years old and its origin is from the Kelts that used to live on the Istrian peninsula.
After i tried a couple of them brandies. Spoke with the hostess and asked her.
how come you don't have any homemade brandy in the shop?
She replied that
this brandy is homemade.
I've said
I know this brand it's not homemade.
She explained that this manufacturer uses all the old recipes in the manufacture of the brandy and if i don't believe her I can go to their distillery which is close by and see for myself.Later on i found out that this manufacturer is the owner of this shop.I thanked her for brandy,info and went to check out the distillery. Was a little dizzy when i went out from the shop. Did drink a lot of brandy shots. Good thing that I had a designated driver with me, so i gave her the keys to the car and pointed her in the right direction to the distillery.
Wanna see how they make brand
The distillery was only 15 km away. Was there in about 20 min. I was met by the lovely hostess who was very kind and offered me to try the brandy. Although I already tried everything there is to try at the souvenir shop in Hum I didn't refuse. You have to like Istrian people they offer you free alcohol where ever you go.Tok tons of pictures here but these are the only ones I could salvage because I was so wasted that all other the pictures are out of focus.She briefly told me the story how they started from little production that was disttiled at home to a distillery I am seeing here today,and also offered to give me a tour of the distillery which I most kindly accepted.
Jam making part of the factory. All of their products are without any preservatives or artificial ingredients.
In these chrome barrels at the back, they ferment the fruit from which they are going to make the brandy. They've got like 15 different fruit flavored brandies.After the process of fermentation which lasts around 14 days they distill the batch using the copper distillation equipment in front. After that, they get brandy that has around 50% alcohol in it. Then they dilute the batch with a specific amount of distilled water depending on what type of brandy they are making.
They rest the final product in these plastic barrels with some of the fruit that was used in the fermentation process.
These barrels are 200 years old.
After every batch of different fruit brandy process, they collect the residue and put it in a single container. Then they do the whole process all over again with all 15 fruits mixed together, but this time at the end they place the brandy into barrique French oak barrels to age for 3 years.This brandy is called "MILLEFRUTTI"
This is the end of the line where the filter the brandy from that plastic barrels in these chrome containers and fill package and deliver their products all over Croatia.
Brandy shopping suggestion:
- TERANINO (made from a teran sort of wine sweet and delicious)
- BISKA (Kelts used to make this "a mans drink")
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Hope you all are having a great day.
STEEM ON!
Really neat!
thank you very much.
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