A love of sweets is firmly embedded in Austrian culture, from the classic Sachertorte with a ribbon of apricot jam to flaky apple strudel and the raspberry- hazelnut linzertorte. Equally mesmerizing is the Manner Neapolitaner Wafer, unmistakable in its iconic pink foil wrapping and far-reaching global audience. A confection that combines a triumph of engineering with a focus on quality ingredients, the wafer is so swoon-worthy that it has achieved cult status. In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, I took an armchair trip to Vienna for a little gift-giving and recipe inspiration.

My introduction to the hazelnut cream wafer began years ago: first, when my son Drew was studying in Vienna, then again when he and my daughter, Maggie were both in school in London. When academic breaks allowed, they criss-crossed much of Europe together; by train, by bus, on foot, cramming in as much history, culture, and local cuisine as possible. I lived vicariously from afar. Being part of a family fueled by our insatiable appetite for regional customs, it was just a matter of time before Manner wafers became an integral part of their travel itinerary. Tucked into backpacks and squirreled away in suitcases, the sweet souvenirs ultimately found their way into my eager hands when my young travelers returned from abroad. I was in love. Captivated by this hybrid candy-cookie, I doled them out judiciously, afraid my limited supply would quickly dwindle, announcing to anyone within earshot that Manner wafers would make the perfect base for a pie.

There is something decidedly different and richly satisfying about the five-layer wafer, perfumed with cocoa and hazelnut. From its distinctive pink packaging down to its perfectly mouth-sized rectangle shape, the confection provides more than a sugar rush. Maggie summed it up best when I recently confessed my obsession with the treats. “They are very easy to eat,” she agreed. “For something incredibly light, there’s so much flavor.” Maggie continued, “Manner reminds me of travels abroad with Drew, passing the pink package back and forth on long, cold, train rides, calculating who would get the last piece.”

Unlike the typical grab-and-go sweet that assaults from the checkout line of any American supermarket, Manner isn’t simply a snack, it’s an experience. The precision-cut of the wafers, the multiple layers of cream, and the pleasing way they shatter provide a distinctive texture not quite like any of our stateside counterparts. Unlike domestic cream-filled wafers, Manner’s are extremely flavorful without being cloyingly sweet. In short, their deliciousness is clearly a sum of its parts—and we have Josef Manner to thank for that.

In 16th century Austria and throughout much of Europe, quality sweets were primarily a fixture at royal courts. Because cocoa and sugar were expensive imports, chocolate drinks, in particular, were a popular treat at exclusive gatherings. The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 ushered in the modern era of chocolate. Cocoa could then be mixed with sugar and liquids, transforming it into a confectionery ingredient. The resulting drop in production costs made the it more widely available to the masses.

In 1889, Manner opened a small candy store in Vienna’s Stephansplatz, near the historic St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The shop started out selling chocolates and feigenkaffee—which translates to “fig coffee,” a mixture of ground roasted coffee and dried fig that was popular throughout Austria and much of Europe. Within a year, Manner was keen on expanding his business; he purchased a small chocolate production company and, in a conscious decision to make his product more accessible, sold his sweets by the piece. This reflected Manner’s confectionery philosophy: “Chocolate for everyone—good and affordable!”

Business continued to flourish, in large part due to the Manner Neapolitaner Wafers 239, a shelf-stable confection of fluffy hazelnut cream sandwiched between five paper-thin wafer layers. The wafer was so popular that Manner launched a ten-pack in 1907 in response to demand.

As for the mouthful of a name Manner bestowed upon the treat, that came from the original source of the hazelnuts used in the cream: Naples, Italy. Unearthing the significance of number 239, however, took some sleuthing.

To learn more about the history of the company and the enormity of Manner’s cult status, and to solve the mystery of “239,” I reached out to Karin Steinhart MAS, Head of Corporate Communications and Sponsoring at the Manner office in Vienna. Poring over the statistics she shared, it became abundantly clear that my kids and I were but few among many with an abiding love for the crisp, perfectly sweet-yet-not-saccharine wafer. Overall, the company produces 50,000 tons of sweets per year, which translates to the consumption of approximately 72,000 Manner wafers per hour, or two packs of Manner wafers every second. According to Steinhart, there is a significance to “239.” “The item was first found in the product catalog in 1898 under the rather technical name, “Neapolitaner Schnitte (wafer) No. 239.” She suggests that Manner worked and reworked the wafer until he was satisfied; 239 versions later, he finally was.

The Manner brand has since expanded its product line to include a range of treats; in addition to an assortment of wafer flavors, the company also sells marshmallow candy, chocolate dragées, and even a potent chocolate-hazelnut liqueur. However, the Original Neapolitan Wafers—still made according to that 1898 recipe—remain the company’s best-selling product. (My heart belongs to the original, but I can also vouch for the restorative power of Manner Liqueur.)

Another constant in Manner’s history is its logo, a silhouette of St. Stephen’s, Vienna’s 14th century Romanesque and Gothic cathedral. The ornate church with its multi-colored chevron roof tiles and towering 446-foot spire has served as the backdrop for both cultural and historic events. In times of joy (Wolfgang Mozart’s wedding) and sorrow (Antonio Vivaldi’s funeral) and through the ravages of two world wars, the cathedral, visible from almost anywhere in Vienna, has remained a beacon of the city’s skyline. In 1890, the Archdiocese of Vienna granted the Josef Manner Company exclusive use of the cathedral’s image for marketing purposes. In exchange, Manner agreed to fund the wages of one stonemason dedicated to repairs of the landmark church. This practice continues to this day. Dr. Carl Manner (Josef’s grandson) commented on this special relationship in a 2015 interview, observing that “the cathedral is holding a protective hand over Manner.” Indeed, perhaps humble beginnings and a little divine intervention can yield sweet rewards.

The prominence of St. Stephen’s peeking out from behind the Manner logo conjures the city of Vienna, and for many smitten with the confection, the cathedral is a subliminal reminder of the Manner brand. I asked Drew if he remembered his first Manner encounter; my son recalled a field trip through Vienna’s wine country, and a lunch as uninspired as the brown paper bag it came in. “The most memorable part of the meal,” he noted, “was a pink package of Manner wafers.” Today, whenever he finds them in a shop, he always buys a pack or two. “Nostalgia is a powerful thing,” he added.

As recognizable as the silhouette of St. Stephen’s is, the wrapper’s vivid pink color is equally iconic. Steinhart confirmed that the rosy hue was the color of the original packaging and that the Vienna headquarters has been painted to match. But it doesn’t stop there; the brand has even teamed up with the Pantone Color Institute to standardize its signature color. The result? “Manner Rosa by Pantone,” an easily recognizable pink that further cements the brand’s legacy. (So easily identifiable, in fact, that it’s virtually impossible to miss the wafers’ cameo appearance in two paragons of pop culture: alongside Austrian actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and behind the counter of the Central Perk café in season six of the 90s TV sitcom, Friends.)

While Manner has a highly visible presence throughout Europe, it is not quite so ubiquitous here in the States. So, when I randomly stumble upon them, like in an off-the-beaten-path farm market in central New Jersey, I find myself grabbing as many packages as I can without drawing attention to myself. And every time I tuck them away in my pantry, I announce authoritatively, “Please don’t eat these- I’m saving them for a recipe.” With Valentine’s Day upon us, I now have all that is needed to reimagine another nostalgic Viennese treat.

A few years ago, during a long-overdue family trip back to Vienna, Drew steered us down a series of cobblestone streets to a quiet cafe away from the crowds. My first kaffeepause (a very civilized pause in the afternoon when one eats pastry and sips coffee) was memorable: a raspberry pastry, defined by a crunchy hazelnut base, jammy filling, and a dollop of rich cream. Between meals and additional coffee breaks, we devoured history and culture, occasionally taking refuge from the biting January weather by exploring the local BILLA and SPAR supermarkets, where, to my giddy delight, I discovered Manner wafers were sold by the 400-gram bag. This ensured a stockpile sufficient for a pie crust with plenty left over for snacking. I added the cookies to my hand-held cart along with a small jar of local honey and raspberry preserves, earmarking my souvenirs for a pie.

Standing in Stephansplatz, facing Manner’s flagship store, the majestic St. Stephen’s cathedral is still tended to by a Manner stonemason, easily recognizable in his Manner Rosa uniform. Folklore suggests when the breeze aligns with the Manner factory just so, you can detect the fragrance of hazelnuts and chocolate in the air; this is true. It’s also true that multiple 10-packs of Manner Neapolitaner wafers fit handily in one’s carry-on luggage, and the lightweight biscuits aren’t likely to tip any baggage weight restrictions. (Honey and jam, Maggie warned, are considered liquids and must travel in checked luggage.) A return trip to Vienna in the immediate future seems unlikely, but a Manner-inspired pie is the next-best thing to a restorative holiday.

The post A Trip to Vienna is as Close as this Pink Foil-Wrapped Wafer appeared first on Saveur.

Austria’s southeastern region of Styria is known as the country’s “green heart.” There, hills are alive with medieval villages, Baroque architecture, and vineyards brimming with Müller-Thurgau and Zweigelt grapes. But it’s a bulbous orange pumpkin, banded in dark forest green, the color of the hull-less seeds it holds within, that’s a distinctly Styrian specialty, one that didn’t even exist a century or so ago.

“The oilseed mutation was a game changer” says Michael Mazourek, an associate professor of plant breeding at Cornell University who specializes in squash. “Mutations are happening all the time in nature…there’s only a subset of those that we notice.”

This advancement led to an increased production of the viscous verdant oil called kernöl, or kürbiskernöl; the signature “green gold” of Steiermark (the German word for Styria). While pumpkin seed oil was already a part of the Styrian diet, it was a specialty product that only few farms grew, and only certain stone mills could press. Thanks to this evolution, and an increased yield, Austrians attained an ingredient that has become so important to their cuisine. It’s becoming so valued internationally that even a stateside producer, Stony Brook Wholehearted Foods, has successfully sourced and sold pumpkin seed oil, pressed from Styrian pumpkin seeds grown in upstate New York, to the American pantry for a decade.

The cucurbita pepo field pumpkin is known to have been grown in Styria since the late 1800s, but the modern-day oilseed sort wasn’t cultivated until the 1920s. For over 200 years, farmers in Austria had been growing varieties with bumblebee yellow, sometimes even marigold orange interiors, but their prized seed wasn’t so sought after.

In 1947, the first hull-less oilseed pumpkin, the Gleisdorfer Olkurbis, was developed at the Gleisdorf Seed Breeding Institute in Austria; it’s still the most widespread vine in the country, if not Europe. But in the 1950s, a plant breeder named Erich Tschermak developed a more favorable fruit, by combining a softer-shelled hull-less-seeded pumpkin with a short-shooted bush-type squash, for easier access in the field, and more seeds per fruit. “The rest is history,” says Mazourek.

In the absence of a seed coat, pumpkins will toughen their exterior skin to protect their insides; at the same time, more nutrients are being sent to the kernel. The downside: “to maximize that oil, you don’t want the plant investing to make a lot of carbohydrates in the meat of the pumpkin,” says Mazourek.

“With a hull-less seed, what you gain is access. The pumpkins of the past required a lot of labor or specialized equipment to get the shells off. Now it’s much more democratized. You can even get a little tabletop grinder and do it yourself,” says Mazourek.

In late spring, last year’s saved pumpkin seeds are sown into the field, and by June, the vines begin to bloom bright, sunrise-orange flowers. Harvest comes in September and October, but the pumpkins never leave the fields—they’re processed as soon as they’re picked. First, they’re run through a combine that separates the seed from the rest of the pumpkin; the seeds are collected, crushed, ground and pressed, either on the farm, or a nearby mill. Due to the seed’s high protein content, the leftover pressed paste, or ölkaas, is used as flour or animal feed.

While big players in the industry like Steirerkraft, Farmer-Rabensteiner, and Pelzmann make the majority of the oil you’ll find in supermarkets across Austria, there are still many smaller, family-run kernöl businesses, like sixth-generation Schalk Mühle, whose pumpkin seeds are roasted by hand in pans over wood-burning stoves, and Berghofer Mühle, whose 800-year-old mill runs off its own hydroelectric power generator on the banks of the Rába river.

High in antioxidants, the raw pressed oil has long been linked to many medicinal properties, such as promoting prostate and eye health. Look for a GGA (Geschützte Geografische Angabe) label on a bottle for the best taste and color; this indicates the oil’s been produced in Styria with Styrian pumpkins, and only from the first pressing (you can press seeds up to three times!). The resulting product looks like a luminescent blend of balsamic vinegar and fresh extra-virgin olive oil, appearing green in a thin stream, and red when in a thick pool, an optical phenomenon called dichromatism.

The dichotomy here is that Gregory Woodworth, the owner of Stonybrook WholeHearted Foods, never hoped to bring kernöl into the American pantry; he was just handed a surfeit of food waste. After relocating his cookie company from New York City to upstate, he was approached by Martin Farms, one of the only commercial growers of hull-less pumpkin seeds on the East Coast. They started working together 10 years ago, with one acre, and now have 200 acres of Styrian pumpkin vines.

While the international market is bigger for seeds than the oil itself (e.g. granolas, trail mixes, or sold as snacks by the handful), you still have to watch out for impostors. “Some importers sell seeds from gourds, melons, and even cucumbers,” says Woodworth. “They’ve been steamed to remove the shell and sterilized for food safety, which contributes to the olive-green color.”

Unlike the Austrians who add water and salt (salt helps pull oil from the kernel) to the seeds before grinding them to a porridge on a stone mill, Woodworth washes, dries, and cleans the seeds, rendering them shelf-stable for up to two years, much like almonds or walnuts. The viscosity of Austrian oil is much thicker than Stony Brook’s, but since Woodworth processes his seeds for storage, he can press fresh oil outside of the autumnal season. The oil itself has a shelf life of less than a year; after that it loses its color and molasses-y umami-rich flavor—fresher is better.

There are many Styrian recipes that call for pumpkin seed oil, such as, käferbohnen, or scarlet runner beans. In this dish, speckled dark-violet beans are cooked until creamy, then tossed with a vinaigrette of apple cider vinegar and pumpkin seed oil. But kernöl doesn’t only need to be used in a Styrian sensibility. The earthy, nutty oil can handily season a salad on its own. The oil is also often served at the end of a meal with vanilla ice cream, and in New York City, Markus Glocker, the chef at Bâtard and Augustine restaurants, may be from the small town of Gallneukirchen, near Linz in Upper Austria, but he’s long been harnessing the power of Styrian pumpkin seeds.

While cooking at the contemporary Austrian Steirereck Restaurant in Vienna, he used to make a famous recipe of soft-scrambled eggs (steirische kernöl eierspeise) for staff meal. “The eggs are doused with oil when they’re still warm,” says Glocker, who loves the myriad ways the oil can bolster a dish. “It makes things creamy without being too heavy, like adding butter, but with the tannin of red wine, which gives a little more structure to a dish.”

With regards to the seeds, Glocker enjoys them as a snack, whether an energy boost for exercise, or in front of the TV. In the kitchen, Glocker has a multifaceted brittle recipe, treating the seeds as one would candied nuts; they end up sweet, salty, and savory, and can be used in an entrée (he sometimes serves a turbot “farci” with organic hen egg, pumpkin seeds, charred leeks, and Champagne sauce at Bâtard), as well as dessert. He was recently in a friend’s backyard making Styrian fried chicken (steirisches backhendl). A hefty handful of ground-up seeds in the breading adds more crunch to the crust and an earthy overall taste; the oil garnishes a potato and mache salad on the side. Glocker has even used kernöl from Hans Reisetbauer (a famed Austrian schnapps maker) as a replacement for butter service, showcasing Styria’s emerald treasures as the drops of green gold they truly are.

The post The Green Gold of Austria appeared first on Saveur.

In Vienna’s 10th district, one of lush parks and simple red-brick buildings, Andreas Gugumuck tends his rows of low wood paddocks, the shadowy spaces he created in his sprawling urban garden for his snails to breed in. “It’s a paradise for them,” Gugumuck says. The farm’s calcium-rich soil and the area’s consistent rains help maintain the snails’ ideal level of humidity. This year, his farm will yield around one and a half tons of the mollusks, most of which he’s either serving at his own on-site restaurant, Wiener Schnecke (Schnecken means “snails”), or sending out to the best chefs in Austria.

In 2008, after inheriting the 400-year-old farm from his grandmother, Gugumuck left his job at IBM in hopes that he could reintroduce this nearly extinct culinary delicacy to modern-day Vienna. He just needed to create an environment in which several different species (Roman, Mediterranean, and pedigree snails) could thrive. According to Gugumuck, it wasn’t difficult. “Breeding snails is the same as keeping a garden,” he says.

Snails make up a forgotten piece of Viennese cuisine. While most people have heard of crispy Wiener schnitzel or Sachertorte, not many realize that during the Middle Ages, Vienna was the global leader in snail consumption. Introduced by the Romans, these mollusks were a staple largely because the Catholic church allowed them as an alternative to the red meat that was historically restricted during fasting times such as the 40 days of Lent. They weren’t just cooked with butter and garlic like you might see in a French bistro, but eaten alongside chicken, stirred into ragout, stuffed into sausages, or fried as a street-food snack.

Eventually the government made it illegal to harvest snails in the wild. The exact reason has been lost to history, but the city’s taste for Schnecken widely vanished.

Inspired by vintage recipe books, Gugumuck started with 20,000 snails; this year, he will produce 300,000. His garden contains about half an acre of outdoor breeding fields, which he calls a “salad farm” for the Swiss chard, mustard greens, and carrots he grows there. But the snails’ favorite meal might be sunflowers. “They love sunflowers so much that I can’t actually grow them,” he explains. “Otherwise, they eat them until they’re dead.”

Snails are efficient at converting plant matter into protein, and, Gugumuck says, loss to predators or weather is negligible. While the Mediterranean variety can be ready for eating in one season—usually April to November—the Roman snail, the largest, with a shell that can grow up to 2 inches around, can take two years, and longer if the snails slow their eating early in the season. So his main efforts are typically spent making sure the snails are eating, because, to chefs, “snail quality is all about the size.”

To help spread the word beyond in-the-know restaurants, Gugumuck hosts two snail festivals a year, including one during Lent, to show off the wide culinary possibilities—or at least to encourage people to move beyond dousing them with butter. At his own 28-seat dining room, he serves them in parfaits, goulashes, tartares, and sausages, among other preparations. “My snails taste like mild veal, with a bit of earthiness,” he says. “So if they say the best thing about snails is the butter, it’s because those snails just aren’t good enough.”

The post Snails Are Making a Comeback in Austria, Thanks to This Farmer appeared first on Saveur.

Cheesemongers all over the world sing the praises of Italian Fontina, French Comté, and Swiss Gruyère, but in Austria, there’s a version of these Alpine-style wheels that never leaves its hometown.

Bergkäse, literally “mountain cheese,” is a longstanding tradition in the Austrian Alps, and the process for making it is virtually identical among the local cheesemakers, adhering strictly to the European Union’s Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) standards. But the cheeses from each of these various cheesemakers are nonetheless unique; the subtle differences in flavor are a pure expression of the milk, influenced by the hearty mountain herbs and grasses in each cow’s diet. Each year yields nuanced flavors and aromas, like vintages of wine.

Like its more famous counterparts, Austria’s herbaceous, nutty style of mountain cheese can only be made two months of the year, in July and August, when the cows are grazing on Alpine herbs and grass at 6,000 feet above sea level. Everyone in Austria agrees that this is when their milk tastes best, and the resulting cheese—made with high butterfat milk that concentrates the complex earthy flavors—tastes best too. Since it isn’t exported to the States, the best way to sample Austrian Bergkäse is directly at the source, hiking between the Alpine huts where the cheese is made. Trails are well-marked, and in Bregenzerwald, a region in Austria’s westernmost state of Vorarlberg, you can even coordinate self-guided culinary hikes.

Here, there are approximately 20 small village dairies that produce cheese year-round, and in the summer, that number balloons to 130. Many cheesemakers do not have their own cows, but take care of cows from neighboring farmers for the summer, paying the farmers back with some of their precious cheese.

One of these dairies is run by Alpmeister Fridel Fritsche, who started making cheese when he was just 14 years old. He works his longest, hardest days during the summer months, producing cheese from 80 cows belonging to farmers in the Alpe Rona agricultural community in Brandnertal. “There’s nothing that difficult about the technique or process,” he says. “We simply follow the old craft traditions.”

Fritsche’s head cheesemaker first skims cooled milk, collected the evening before, then adds it to a copper kettle along with fresh milk from the morning. After heating the milk to 32°C (about 90°F), cultures and rennet are added, and 40 minutes later, when the mixture has become firm like jelly, it’s cut with the harp—a large press of sorts that cuts the cheese with wires—and further heated to 52°C (about 126°F), before it’s cooled with the addition of a little cold water. The cheese is then skimmed into molds and pressed, before resting for three days in a salt bath. Afterwards, it’s off to the wooden racks for maturation.

Tina Feuerstein, another cheesemaker, closer to Lake Constance in Bregenzerwald’s Alpe Schwarzenberger Platte, has been making Bergkäse in much the same fashion for 20 years. Feuerstein’s three teenage children help with the cheese production and tend to the farm animals. In her cellar, Feuerstein carefully monitors the wheels while they matures, turning them and rubbing them with salt water every two days to prevent molding. She also keeps pigs, and pumps the leftover whey, which is full of vitamins and minerals, into the pigsty for them to drink. Although she farms year-round, the summers in seclusion on the mountain are so different from farming in the valley.

“My life becomes more exhausting [in the summer], but the way of life becomes easier,” Feuerstein explains. “There’s no Wi-Fi and no TV. You have to be very well-organized and then you can handle the work and enjoy the small things, like beautiful sunsets, the silence, the view, and the happy animals. I like being my own boss.”

Gerhard Lucian, a cheesemaker at Kriegeralpe, east of Alpe Rona, grew up in a family of hoteliers; he’s since taken up the hobby of cheesemaking in addition to his full-time duties running Burg Hotel Oberlech. “When I wake up in the morning at 2000 meters above sea level, that’s a special feeling” he says. “I can just switch off mentally. Yes, I have a lot to do at the hotel but to make cheese is not a stress. It’s a gift.” Lucian’s mountain hut is an easy hike from his hotel, so guests and locals often stop by for a wine and cheese pairing.

Lucian’s production is relatively tiny—just 30 wheels of cheese from 11 cows—and he serves it only at the hut and his family’s hotels in Oberlech and Salzburg. “We let it mature at least six to eight months,” he says. “But it is best after 12 months—pleasantly spicy.” They also produce Frischkäse (fresh cheese) and Topfen (curd cheese) which is excellent folded into cakes and strudels.

Younger Bergkäse is typically eaten at breakfast and the more mature cheeses for dinner. It’s delicious on its own, or sliced or melted onto hearty dark bread, and is a versatile cooking cheese too. After a long solo hike on a hot summer day, a massive bucket of Käsespätzle (a hearty, Austrian version of macaroni and cheese) topped with crispy onions at Jagdgasthaus Egender in Schönenbach is in order.

The southernmost valley in Vorarlberg, Montafon, is also famous for its Sura Kees, which translates to “sour cheese” in the local dialect. This fresh tangy cheese, a separate category from semi-hard Bergkäse, has been a regional specialty since the 12th century, and is made by adding a yogurt culture to skimmed milk overnight until it turns thick and sour. The following morning, the cauldron is heated so that the still soft cheese separates from the whey. The cheese is filled into two-kilogram molds and seasoned with coarse salt and pepper, ready to enjoy after resting for just a couple days in the cellar.

Andrea and Andreas Wieser of Alpe Nova in Montafon have been making Sura Kees this way for 16 years. Most of the year, Andrea works at a butchery and Andreas as a piste-basher driver at the Silvretta Montafon ski resort. From June to mid-September, the couple moves with their daughter, son, and a herd of 68 cows to their small cottage on the Alps. Their 13-year-old son is a big help, driving cattle to pasture, cleaning out the stable, milking cows, and mending fences.

Ultimately, the secret behind Austrian Alpine cheese is actually quite simple. It all comes down to the fragrant and flavorful summer milk. Local herbalists use the same Alpine plants the cows enjoy to make tinctures, balms and schnapps, believing that the mountain flora—with their shorter life cycles and durability against harsh mountain conditions—are more potent than their lower elevation cousins.

“It is a very precious time for me and my family,” Andrea says. “These are long days of strenuous physical labor and there’s not a single day off, but each year I notice how calm and content I am here. I don’t need fancy clothes or beautiful shoes, and we don’t have time to miss technology because our days are so busy. My love for the Alps and passion for working here in the mountains makes me happy.”

The post Meet the Village Cheesemakers of Austria’s Alpine Cheese Trail appeared first on Saveur.

Nicolas Palazzi and Alexander Rainer are walking in the cloud-shrouded Tyrolean Alps, somewhere above Innsbruck, Austria. The sun is setting; the cool air, scented with moss and barnyard. Cowbells ring, flies buzz lazily about.

Rainer, the co-owner of a schnaps distillery called Rochelt, is exuberant. Classically Austrian with bright blue-green eyes and cleanly cut blond hair, he makes conversation about hiking and the region’s best sausage (rostbratwurst, leberkäse) and cheese (Tiroler Alpkäse).

Palazzi, a Bordeaux-born and New York—based spirits importer, is serious, broad shouldered, solid like the boxer he once was. His company, PM Spirits (Paul-Marie Spirits, named for his father), specializes in discovering, importing, and distributing small-scale, handmade spirits.

Watch: The Spirit Hunter at Work

In an era when so many spirits are conceptualized as brands and traded like commodities, Palazzi’s method of face-to-face reconnaissance is unusual. He approaches producers with the scrutiny and meticulous inquisitiveness of an art appraiser. “It has to be real,” he says of the liquid itself. “I have to feel excited about it—and the people behind it.” Beyond novelty, he always asks, Is this a bottle worth acquiring? Are its creators invested in their work? Palazzi is always searching for the spirit behind a spirit.

When they reach the top of the range, Rainer and Palazzi trade sips of Mirabelle plum schnaps from a forest-green glass pocket flask. The yellow walnut-size fruit are sourced, Rainer says, from Weinviertel, a region in eastern Austria known for its grüner veltliner. He’s bottled them “only in years when the fruit is exceptional”—2004, 2005, and a 2006 that will become a 10-year-old vintage. It’s bright, soft, and tart—the exact flavor of a wild, sour plum. In a country where amateur distilling is common, Rochelt’s spirits are to homemade schnaps as first-growth bordeaux is to table wine.

Rochelt was founded in 1989 by Rainer’s father-in-law, Gunter Rochelt, who was set on perfecting the Tyrolean tradition of distilling eau-de-vie. When Gunter passed away in 2009, Rainer inherited the business along with his wife, Annia, and her two sisters, Julia and Teresa Rochelt. Their spirits are made in extremely limited quantities from difficult-to-source fruits like wild Carpathian raspberries, Styrian Gravenstein apples, and Burgenländer gewürztraminer grapes. Bottled in elaborate, striated green glass pincer bottles (a traditional Austrian design in which the middle is pinched together) and topped with silver stoppers designed by Otto Jakob, a German jeweler whose works are highly collectible, Rochelt’s spirits are expensive (up to $450 for a 375-ml bottle) and have never legally been brought into the United States.

The pair reach a mountain hut where they sit to eat brown bread and landjäger sausage with grainy mustard. On a typical sourcing trip, Palazzi spends most of his time in dusty basements or cellars with dirt floors. “I usually meet people from the land who are digging holes or repairing tractors,” he says. He works most often in France and laments that producers in Cognac are famously tight-lipped, especially in older, family-run operations. Rainer, by contrast, is happy to share the secrets of the family business; he’s proud of their precision, their devotion to tradition, and the legacy they sustain.

This is what Palazzi is looking for: a passion for beautiful materials over replicable merchandise. Hunting spirits, Palazzi often finds himself discovering families—a pair of brothers in Calvados, a fourth-generation cognac maker, a second-generation distiller of biodynamic eau-de-vie—whose work he heard about by word of mouth. (Rochelt came to him through a request from Gabriel Kreuther, an Alsatian restaurant in New York City.) Beyond an eye for quality, Palazzi’s chief talent is having the diligence to gain the trust of people whose businesses were never built to be marketed.

This kind of patient scouting—celebrating the unsung and obscure, the handmade and peculiar—is as rare as the spirits he seeks. When he first encounters a new producer, he thinks as much about the people behind it as the product itself.

“The stuff in the glass needs to be pure,” Palazzi says. “And the people behind it need to be truthful.” In the case of Rochelt, he knew the spirits were worth pursuing the moment he had a sample. “I tasted it, and everything was there.” He just needed to meet its makers.

The next day, Rainer and Palazzi sit on the distillery’s terrace, sipping through a series of schnaps. They’ve come to apricot, a Rochelt touchstone. “This one is riper, more vibrant,” Palazzi says, burrowing his nose into a tiny, handmade eau-de-vie glass. “This one is tighter, restrained. The ’08 is good, but the ’09 is better.” Rainer nods as if Palazzi has just passed some sort of test.

Inside the distillery, apricot mash is added to a gleaming copper still. The room smells of baked fruit. “We get these apricots from Wachau, where they’re harvested on the banks of the Danube,” says Rainer. It’s unusual to source fruit this way—grower by grower, region by region, year by year. In fact, Rainer’s process is much like making wine, choosing particular fruits from specific parcels of land in superlative years. “Ripeness matters,” he says. “Where it comes from matters.” He gets red Williams pears and morello cherries from Austria, wild rowanberry from Finland, forest raspberries from Armenia, and oranges from Sicily, among others. He experiments often with new fruits, new growers, and new combinations. And some years he’ll reject fruit that he doesn’t feel will make perfect spirits. This year, the apricots have shown very well.

“Does anything else go in the mash?” Palazzi asks, peering into the porthole of the copper still.

“Just the fruit,” says Rainer. “Follow me.”

Up a flight of stairs and into an attic room filled with soft light refracted through large glass balloons filled with vintage eau-de-vie, organized into neat rows, each one’s neck covered only with a small piece of linen. It’s oddly intimate and still, like walking through a museum storeroom filled with works waiting to be framed. Rochelt is singular for many reasons, but most notably for its spirits’ long resting periods. All of its schnaps are aged in these shimmering vessels, some for 12 years or more. This long period of dormancy allows the schnaps to evaporate, concentrate, and meld together in a way that couldn’t be achieved if they were cut with water right away and bottled, which is how most spirits that don’t see the inside of a barrel are made.

In one corner Rainer keeps reserve bottles that will remain at their natural proof. Where many resting rooms are heady with evaporating alcohol, thick with dust, and stacked with sleeping barrels, this room smells only of fruit—brambly berries, perfumed pears, foxy grapes.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Palazzi says, wandering through the illuminated glass balloons, sniffing at the linen caps, taking notes.

“We lose 2,000 liters a year to the angels,” says Rainer. “But the angels have been good to us.”

A Few of Palazzi’s Rare Finds

Navarre Grande Fine Champagne Cognac and Pineau des Charentes
A fourth-generation cognac maker, Jacky Navarre makes his spirits in a way most producers have forgotten. Hand-harvested grapes are distilled on the lees and put into a barrel until they proof naturally to 45 percent ABV, a process that takes 40 to 50 years—yes, half a century.

Cazottes Eau-de-vie and liqueurs in Tarn, France
Laurent Cazottes inherited the knowledge of spirit making from his father, a traveling distiller. In pursuit of purity, Laurent pioneered the idea of growing and distilling his own biodynamic produce, including wild quince, sour cherry, prunelart grapes (a heritage grape from Southwest France), and greengage plums.

Navazos-Palazzi Sherry-cask aged spirits in Jerez
A collaboration between Palazzi himself and famed sherry purveyor Equipo Navazos, these single-cask spirits—including Caribbean rum and Spanish whiskey and brandy—are aged in some of the best cellars in all of Andalucía.

Frank Cornelissen Grappa from Etna, Sicily
Winemaker Frank Cornelissen believes deeply in making wines ultranaturally—no crop manipulation, gentle bottling, no sulfur. The result? Funky, terroir-driven releases beloved in the natural wine community. These labels—Rosso del Contadino and MunJebel Rosso—are made using the same excellent grapes as Cornelissen’s prized wines.

The post Meet the Spirit Hunter Tracking Down Some of the World’s Best Brandy appeared first on Saveur.

An assortment of breads at Portland’s Tabor Bread

It is heirloom wheat, growing tall and wild in an endless field. By day’s end, it will be a loaf of bread. If this sounds like a scene out of Portlandia, think again. A clutch of intrepid artisan bakers is taking up the challenge of milling their own wheat, baking with flour that’s just a few hours old, and giving new meaning to the words fresh bread.

“Wheat has terroir. It has aroma,” says Dave Miller, who opened Chicago’s Baker Miller with his wife Megan in October 2014. “It’s like grapes, coffee, fine wine. When you buy bread in the grocery store, it’s made from wheat that’s been treated and has been sitting around. It’s been chemically processed and has no nutrients left.” The Millers (can’t beat the name, right?) are on a mission to educate the bread-eating public about the beauty of freshly milled wheat. “Who cares where your meat and your vegetables are from, if your flour is just from a big bag in the basement? We wanted people to see the grain and the flour and think about it as an artisan ingredient, just like other things,” says Miller.

Baguettes from Chicago’s Baker Miller

While the Millers had a clear vision—bake bread from flour just a few hours old—they had neither a mill nor milling experience. Undeterred, they sold their impossibly popular pie shop, Bang Bang Pie, purchased two mills on local farms, and built one for the bakery. Along the way, they taught themselves how to mill by reading and corresponding via email with the milling experts of Hayden Flour Mills in Arizona and Getreidemuehlen in Austria. After three intense months of trial and error, they were ready to open.

These days, their freshly milled flour is either bagged for sale online or kneaded into loaves of Chicago Sourdough, Ancho Chili Cocoa Nib, Sunflower Rye, or Sparrow Onion Rye. The difference in aroma, texture, and flavor is remarkable: It’s like you’ve been eating bread in black and white and someone’s just turned on the color.

“We want to change the way people eat and help create a movement behind artisan flour,” says Miller. To that end, they are in the process of opening a demonstration kitchen and mill in Chicago that will be open to the public and serve as a place for education, baking, and events. “We want everyone to understand the beauty of freshly milled flour.”

At Josey Baker Bread in San Francisco, an Ostiroller mill—a horizontal stone mill built in Austria from a centuries-old design—grinds an average of 350 pounds of heirloom wheat daily, as well as rye, spelt, cornmeal, Einkorn, and buckwheat for hearty loaves like California Heirloom bread, Einkorn, Dark Mountain Rye, and Black Pepper Parmesan, one of the bakery’s best sellers.

Josey Baker (yes, that’s his real last name) was designing kids’ science curricula for University of California at Berkley when he took a liking to baking bread. When friends were lining up outside his apartment to buy up to 60 loaves a day, he realized he had a business on his hands. He decided he’d mill his own flour after tasting a loaf made with freshly milled flour by David Miller (a different David Miller than the one in Chicago) at Miller’s Bakehouse. “The aroma, flavor, and texture was so vibrant and unlike anything I had ever eaten,” Baker says. “I thought, ‘I need to figure out a way to do this’.” Baker had never milled flour before, but Miller taught him the nuances of the grind. Today, flour that’s just a few hours old is the bedrock of his artisan bread business. “Flour is the main ingredient of bread, so having control over the transformation of that grain into flour seems pretty integral to get deeper into the process of bread making,” says Baker.

Tissa Stein, owner of Tabor Bread

Naturally, the mill-your-own movement has also reached Portland, Oregon. At Tissa Stein’s Tabor Bread, head baker Brad Holderfield starts milling about 4 a.m. when he gets to the bakery. His Ostiroller mill runs for about 10 or 11 hours straight, grinding about 200 pounds of local wheat daily for standards like white and wheat batards, spelt loaves, and seeded red wheat bread fired in an Alan Scott oven. Holderfield favors freshly milled flour for the same reasons Baker and Miller do: flavor, freshness, nutritional value, and aroma. But he’s also keen on the cost. “Instead of paying $45–50 per pound for organic flour, we are paying 20–25 bucks. It’s pretty cheap, it’s not labor intensive, and three hours later we have 50 pounds of flour.”

The mill at Tabor Bread

Fresh flour does have one drawback—and it’s the thing that makes it so special in the first place. The fact that it’s unprocessed and free of stabilizers makes working with it rather unpredictable; sometimes it needs more water, sometimes it ferments too fast. “Fresh flour is more alive and responds less consistently,” explains David Miller. “Every day is different. One day it will absorb water quickly and the yeasts will be really active. The next day, the complete opposite. It really takes a lot more attention to detail and patience.” Josey Baker agrees. “It’s complicated working with fresh flour, but what it does is give you the potential to make better bread.”

Tabor Bread’s Ostiroller mill

Milling your own also supports small local grain farmers who don’t have the infrastructure to mill themselves. “We buy Sonora (an heirloom grain) from a farmer two hours away who doesn’t have a mill, so the only way to use her wheat is if we mill it ourselves,” says Baker. “Otherwise she’d have no one to sell to.”

Miller had a similar experience. To find high-quality grain, he searched for organic, non-GMO, heirloom wheat and finally found Brian Severson Farms through the farmer he buys pork products from. “Severson was going to stop growing the wheat because no one was buying it,” Miller says. “He dropped some samples off, we ground them up, and we were like, holy crap. These are amazing. You can smell it. You can feel it.”

The post Meet the Millers: Three Bakers Revolutionizing Artisan Bread appeared first on Saveur.

For sheer refreshment, nothing beats Austria’s Almdudler soda; it’s like a thirst-quenching mix of zippy lemon seltzer and ginger ale, with a pleasing herbaceous undertone from the Alpine herbs that go into it. The name comes from the old Viennese phrase auf der alm dudeln, meaning “yodeling in the meadows.” One bubbly sip and we’re ready to do just that.

Almdudler Limonade, $2.29 at Germandeli.com

The post Almdudler appeared first on Saveur.

Austrian schnaps producer Alois Golles ferments just-pressed peak-season fruit into some of the most delicious vinegar we’ve ever tasted, achieving a heady fresh-berry aroma and a rich flavor poised between sweet and sharp. We love this magenta-hued elixir blended into a marinade for pork or duck, mixed with seltzer for a tangy drink, and whisked into a dressing, which we drizzle over frisee for a perfectly balanced salad.

Golles raspberry vinegar, $21 for an 8.5-oz. bottle at The Blue Heron Trading Company; 218/722-8799

The post Gölles Raspberry Vinegar appeared first on Saveur.

This holiday season, take inspiration from around the world with these 25 international Christmas recipes, from sugar-dusted Polish bow-tie fritters and the Puerto Rican Christmas staple pernil asado (roast pork shoulder) to tourtiere, a rustic Canadian meat pie.

See the gallery »

The post Christmas Recipes From Around The World appeared first on Saveur.

In New York, where I live, biergartens are taking over the city. Lately it seems like every other block hosts a German-style beer gardens, the convivial din of clinking steins and the spicy scent of sausages dipped in brown mustard drifting into the night. But the biergarten’s cousin, the Austrian heuriger—where the beer is replaced with wine, but the spirit remains the same—is almost unknown. That’s a shame, because in Austria, heurigen are some of the best places to tuck into the country’s home-style fare.

Stemming from the word for “this year,” heurigen began to proliferate in the 18th century when a decree by Emperor Joseph II allowed the country’s vintners to sell newly fermented wine directly to customers, tax-free. Winemakers set up communal wooden tables in their gardens or directly in their vineyards, and shortly after the beginning of harvest season, they would hang an evergreen bough just outside their gates as a signal to neighbors that the wine was ready and flowing.

Initially heurigen were not allowed to sell food, a measure to prevent their competition with local restaurants. But the rules slackened over time, and the winemakers (many of whom also grew vegetables and maintained herds of cattle or sheep) began to offer a selection of hot and cold dishes sourced directly from their own farms. That simple, self-contained strategy remains today: “It’s the most direct farm-to-table food you can imagine,” said chef Eduard Frauneder, an Austria-born, New York-based chef who grew up eating in Viennese heurigen with his family.

Sold from a buffet counter, heuriger food tends to be simple and hearty: a paprika-spiked cheese spread called liptauer, vinegar-marinated sausages called sauer blunzen, breaded wiener schnitzel, pickled mushrooms, cabbage and peppers, potato salad spiked with pickled red onion, schmalzbrot (homemade brown bread slathered with crackling-rich pork drippings), and warm apple strudel. The wine continues to be the heuriger’s main event, but it’s the food that encourages people to relax and stay awhile.

Austrian Heurigen inset photo

Heurigen are native to Vienna, where dense clusters of these homey wine taverns once skirted around the edges of the city. The tradition has since spread to the country’s other agricultural regions, and today nearly 200 licensed heurigen dot the country. Last September, I ate at Gabriel, a lovely heuriger in the town of Rust, about an hour southeast of Vienna, where in addition to my mug of lightly-fermented sturm (new wine) and a cheese plate drizzled with pumpkin seed oil, I enjoyed another common heuriger tradition: a round of lively songs played by owner Alfred Gabriel on the in-house grand piano.

Back in New York, Frauneder and his business partner, Wolfgang Ban, are helping to introduce the heuriger to the United States. At their restaurant Edi & The Wolf, a globally-sourced wine list and selection of beers fall outside of the traditional heuriger definition, but the communal wooden table, outdoor garden space, and rustic Austrian dishes (pickled beets and red pearl onions, liptauer with paprika and pumpkin seed oil, spatzle with wild mushrooms and wiener schnitzel) are pulled directly from their homeland’s tavern tradition. “I don’t think people here fully understand the heuriger just yet,” Frauneder said of his non-Austrian clientele, but perhaps that’s soon to change.

Here’s a list of recommended heurigen you can raise a glass to next time you’re in Austria.

Vienna

Fuhgrassl-Huber
Pair a glass of Fuhgrassl-Huber’s tangy zweigelt rose with a selection of fried cheese with cranberries, dumplings, tangy sauerkraut and warm apple strudel from their buffet.
Neustift am Walde 68, 1190 Wien
tel: +43 0/1/440-14-05

Mayer am Pfarrplatz
Raise a refreshing glass of Riesling and tuck into a salad topped with pumpkin seed oil, all while gazing at the apartment where, two centuries ago, Beethoven wrote his famous 9th Symphony.
Pfarrplatz 2, 1190 Wien
tel: +43 01/370-33-61

Wieninger
Opened in 1949, this heuriger is now run by the third generation of the Weininger family. The heuriger’s long pine tables and shady outdoor garden offer the perfect setting for a glass of apple-scented gruner veltliner and a plate of spinach and goat cheese strudel.
Stammersdorfer Straße 78, 1210 Wien
tel: +43 01/292-41-06

Perchtoldsdorf

Nigl
One of Chef Frauneder’s favorites—”they make a killer chardonnay,” he says—this heuriger has cozy parlor-style seating and a wide selection of food and sweets.
Kunigundbergstraße 57, A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf
tel: +43 0/1/865/75-31

Rust

Weingut Gabriel Johannes u. Mitges
The fare at this heuriger skews fresh, simple and very traditional (liptauer, homemade bread, pickles, smoked meat and fish). Enjoy your spread alongside a glass or two of velvety blaufrankisch. If you’re lucky, owner Alfred Gabriel might entertain you with a song or two on the in-house grand piano.
Hauptstrasse 25, A-7071 Rust
tel: +43 0/2685-236-0

The post Heurigen: Austrian Wine Taverns appeared first on Saveur.

Aside from the inky Manischewitz I swilled at the Passover table growing up, and the count-them-on-one-hand glasses of port I’ve ordered after dinner on fancy nights out, my experience with sweet wines has been nearly nonexistent. If anything I have been an active skeptic—believing that sweet wines are for people who can’t handle the real stuff, and carrying around my glass of dry, leggy red wine like a badge of honor.

But as I learned on a recent visit to Austria, sweet wines—meaning wines with high levels of residual sugar, made from grapes left hanging on the vine until late in the season, and often served with dessert—are regarded with as much reverence as Sachertorte. And for good reason. The wines I sampled were complex and surprising, demanding complete attention even after a full meal. They swirled like amber-colored maple syrup in the glass, releasing a honeyed perfume that was the olfactory equivalent of clearing away the dinner dishes, scraping the crumbs from the tablecloth and plunking a majestic pie in the middle of the table. The wines’ sweetness, while powerful, was calmed with generous notes of fruit, and tempered by a slightly bitter finish—a gift from the botrytis or “noble rot” fungus that, in the right temperature conditions, develops on grapes at the end of the season and helps concentrate their flavor.

Today, the center of Austria’s sweet wine production is located in the province of Burgenland, the country’s verdant, sun-drenched answer to the Napa Valley. Erik Quam, the President of Magellan Wine Imports in Colorado, told me that Burgenland’s residents, and particularly in the town of Rust (pronounced “roost”), pioneered the method of making botrytis wine more than 500 years ago. It turns out, the region’s hot summers and foggy, cool autumns are ideal for the development of the noble fungus. Today, the town is so highly regarded for their connection to sweet wine production that they have their own designated category, Ruster Ausbruch.

In recent years, Austria’s dry wines have started to find their way to American tables, with bold varietals like gruner veltliner (white), zweigelt and blaufrankisch (reds) quickly joining chardonnay and merlot in our collective wine lexicon. Sweet wines likely have a ways to go before they can claim the same. That’s partly because making them is labor intensive and weather dependent, which means high quality sweet wines only make up 2-3 percent of Austria’s overall production. It’s also because the American palate is still unfamiliar with and (like I was) a bit wary about sweet wines. And yet, as I discovered, the wines themselves have a way of winning over even the most skeptical heart. One sip (and then another, and another) was all I need to shed my previous “sweet wine is for sissies” assumptions and raise a toast to the sweet life.

3 Bottles to Try

Look for Austrian sweet wines in smaller, 375 mL bottles and keep an eye out for the following categories: Ausbruch (and Ruster Ausbruch), Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, Strohwein/Schilfwein, which means the grapes were dried on straw or reed mats before vinification, and Eiswein, or “ice wine,” which means the grapes were allowed to freeze before harvesting.

Heidi Schrock Beerenauslese 2008 ($42)

Winemaker Heidi Schrock holds two distinctions in Austria: she runs one of the country’s few woman-owned wineries (and founded the 11 Women and Their Wines association), and she is one of the leading and most respected producers of noble rot sweet wines. Her Beerenauslese has a spring-like, almost vegetal nose and a concentrated honeysuckle and lemon meringue pie taste. The finish is long and lush, making this wine a great pairing for a cheese plate.

Feiler-Artinger Ruster Ausbruch Pinot Cuvee 2006 ($58)

Established in Rust in the 1930s, Feiler-Artinger is now a third-generation and, as of 2011, a certified biodynamic winery. 15 percent of the winery’s 64 acres are devoted to sweet wine, like this elegant Ruster Ausbruch. The wine’s deep golden color and vanilla scent give way to a rich palate of orange zest and caramelized sugar. Serve it alongside baked fruit tarts with whipped cream.

Gunter Triebaumer Ruster Ausbruch 2008 ($35)

The Treibaumer family first came to Rust in the late 17th century, and have been making wine there for nearly that long. Gunter Triebaumer and his partner Regina Limbeck are among the family’s newest generation of vintners, cultivating 39 and a half acres of grapes in Rust. Their sunshine-colored Ruster Ausbruch is complex and vivacious, tasting of ripe stone fruit, marmalade and juicy pear. Pair it with custardy desserts like the rich, cream-filled puff pastry, cremeschnitte.

The post Austria’s (Surprising) Sweet Wines appeared first on Saveur.