Travarica Medicinal Liquor

Travarica is a traditional Croatian liquor that is a blend of herbs, fruits and plants with medicinal values typically drank daily or when you had a ailment.  I did some research on the Internet and found that there wasn't many recipes available for review.  The recipes that I did find didn't have descriptions of taste or aroma and honestly some of the traditional ingredients were foreign to me.

I figured the best source for a quality recipe would be someone from the mother country and asked my Dalmatian buddy if he could help.  This is the recipe he gave me:

1L of homemade brandy

This is the Travarica after 2 weeks

1 Sprig of fresh mint
1 Piece of lemon zest (or leaf)
1 Piece of orange zest (or leaf)
3 Pieces of Jujube fruit
1 Sprig of fennel
1/2 Carob pod
Optional:
Pinch of saffron for color
Sprig of marjoram for aroma

O.k., I know what mint, lemon, orange and fennel are but what the heck is Jujube and Carob?  Turns out that Jujube and Carob are fairly common Mediterranean ingredients.  Carob is a seed pod with a dark brown hard outer shell and small tan seeds, its been used as a chocolate substitute in the past.  Jujube is a red date like fruit, though its not a date, and is common in Asia.  I thought it was interesting that jujube would be found in Croatia and asked my dad about it, he explained that in the past Dalmatian sailors traveled the world and brought home all sorts of exotic plants.

Since I had no experience with either I decided to order some off EBay of all places and do some small bench trials.  Though the above recipe doesn't call for wormwood I found another one that did and also decided to include wormwood in the bench trial.  Here is what I've done:

1 Carob pod into 200 ml of brandy (bottom jar)
3 Jujube into 200 ml of brandy (top jar)
10 g of dried wormwood into 200 ml of brandy (middle jar)

I decided to give the jars a sniff and taste today, about 10 days after maceration began, first up was the Carob.  Something to note, both the jujube and carob were dried then packed and shipped, they both rehydrated a few days after macerating them in the brandy.  The only reason I mention this is if your looking to make exactly XXX amount of brandy add a little extra since the dried ingredients will rehydrate.  Back to the Carob, it had a pleasant aroma, that of Carob which if you've never smelled it think of a very faint chocolate smell, and it was slightly sweet.  The color was straw like to golden straw but not yellow, yet.

Next up was Jujube, the aroma was still that of the original brandy, the taste was unique.  I have no good descriptors for the jujube, if you've never had it you need to try it, the best I could do is Asian liquorice.  My neighbor gave me a bottle of this Chinese liquor one day, it smelled and tasted exactly like jujube, it was nasty and I used it to start my charcoal for my grill.  I was worried the jujube would be the same but its not nearly as intense.  Lets hope it doesn't get stronger...

Finally the wormwood, or in Croatian, pelin.  Pelin is the base ingredient for Pelinkovac which is a legendary bitter liquor used to cure stomach aches.  Wormwood contains a chemical called thujone, which is a regulated substance, wormwood in moderation doesn't contain enough thujone to be harmful to humans. The jar of wormwood had a very intense grassy, hay like smell, the color was of cognac and the taste was BITTER.  Words can't describe how bitter the sip was, it took two glasses of water and a piece of cheese to get the bitterness out of my mouth.  Typically travarica recipes call for a sprig of wormwood, I figured 10 grams per liter are about right, I added 10 grams to 200 ml which is 5x more intense than in a regular bottle of travarica, needless to say it was way too much.

I'm going to continue the bench trial for another 2-3 weeks and update the results as I have them.  In the mean time I've found another recipe for travarica and have mixed several variations to the recipe below. Here is the other recipe I've found and am trying:

1L of homemade brandy
1 Sprig of wormwood
1 Sprig of sage
1 Sprig of fennel
1 Piece of lemon zest
1 Piece of orange zest
3 Pieces of Jujube fruit
1 Carob pod
Few grains of anise seed
Few leaves of rosemary
1 Dried fig
Few dried berries (blueberry was recommended)
Few raisins

Its been four days since I mixed the Travarica, I had my first sniffy sniff and sip tonight.  The color had darkened significantly due to the wormwood and there was some bitterness because of it.  The smell was pleasant, I could smell the mint and the grassy wormwood/sage.  I decided to filter out the wormwood since I thought the bitterness was about right and don't want it to taste like the bench trial.

Basically, I washed a stainless steel bowl and used my mesh strainer, poured the brandy through it, picked out the fruit and whole herbs, rinsed them and put them back in the jar.  I then strained the brandy through the mesh strainer and a cheese cloth.  I then added back fresh anise seed and sage since they hadn't had time to develop yet but were strained out with the wormwood.  A good learning experience, going forward I'll macerate the brandy in wormwood for several days to taste then strain the liquor and add the other ingredients.

The other recipes I've read and people I've spoke with all said the keep the liquor in a jar for a month, taste it and then leave it for another month before straining.  I'm going to taste as I go to make sure nothing is becoming overpowering.

Travarica after wormwood was removed

Here is a photo of the Travarica after I've strained out the wormwood, the two jars on the left are both Travarica and the jar on the right is Pelinkovic. Though its somewhat hard to tell the jar of Pelinkovac is significantly darker in color than the two on the left.

You can also see from the photo that the Carob and Jujube are still floating at the tops of the jars, when they sink down to the bottom I think the flavor and aroma should improve and become more complex. Right now the mint and wormwood are dominating both flavor and aroma.