History and methods of production

Orujo is deeply rooted throughout the whole Iberian peninsula, but it is above all in the northwest where it has been a part of everyday life since time immemorial and has always been closely linked to popular culture.

Although alchemy, the mother of distillation, was practised first by the Greeks and subsequently by the Arabs, it was not until around the year 1600 that the Jesuits made orujo popular in Spain.

There are legends and records which associate the origin of orujo in Galicia with the arrival of the Romans. However, on the hill called Pena Corneira, which stands barely 10 km from O Carballiño and was of great ritual importance to the pre-Roman Celtic peoples, a stone was found with markings which could be interpreted as making reference to a forerunner of orujo and, furthermore, to queimada, an eau-de-vie based drink with ritual and magical associations consumed in Galicia at traditional festivals and social gatherings of all kinds, normally at the end of a community feast.

Orujo has always been a low cost subproduct, made as it is from the residues of the last pressing of the grapes used in the making of wine. From that pomace, which had previously been useless, there came forth an elixir originally intended for the poor which helped relieve ills of the soul, pains of the body, the pangs of hunger and aches in the bones.

In Galicia it was the primitive qattara still (alquitara) that was first used for the distillation of orujo, and use thereof in fact continues to some extent today. Subsequently a more modern still (alambique) was adopted. It is the latter that is currently used in most cases. Moist pomace is placed on its large base which is heated by direct firing. Dried herbs are generally added on the base so as to prevent the pomace from being toasted by too strong a flame. The vapour produced goes to a bulb where the first stage of condensation takes place and from there to a coil in a bucket of cold water. The vapour thus becomes liquid in a slow and progressive manner.

Portable stills soon appeared on the scene, carried by poteiros from town to town and fair to fair. Offering their services for little, the poteiros visited farmsteads and grand country houses alike to distil the pomace remaining after the fermentation of the must. The poteiros were and still are (as they are not yet quite extinct) respected figures, given that they were masters of the art of firing and of the slow process of distillation which, although it could last whole nights, they would never leave to its own will. Those were festive nights, full of local history and legend, on which the poteiro officiated like a Druid, engaging the company with his talk, which would become more animated after the first sips of the spirit, and yet never allowing his gaze to wander from the task at hand.

There was a time in the nineteenth century when the making of orujo was actually prohibited by law, but in the majority of houses in Galicia production continued in secret. Because of that stubborn regional resistance, in 1911 the government decided to allow the distillation of orujo but only in the municipalities of Galicia.

With the implementation of that regulation the poteiros, who were nomadic by nature and difficult to control, began to disappear and small industrial producers, who were for the greater part winemakers, instead sprang up. They laid the foundations of a way of work in which the pomace could be carefully selected, quality was controlled and sanitary conditions were much improved. This process had a direct impact on the end product, although it meant leaving behind most of the magic of the rural alchemist. Even so, some of that magic still lives on, particularly in the firing of the pomace which has a crucial bearing on the quality of the end product. As the old artisans knew full well, that process had to be very slow, the temperature of the pot had to be carefully controlled and the end product, made volatile through the combination of heat and the concentration of alcohol, had to emerge drop by drop from the vapour line.

French marc, Italian grappa and Portuguese bagaceira all have the same origin as Galician orujo. That origin is none other than the resurrection of the purest essence of wine as it emerges from the skins of the grapes which, once fermented and distilled, give rise to a unique, crystal-clear spirit endowed with a long life. For all these reasons it was long ago awarded the name aqua vitae, the water of life.