Our team carries on teaching rakija lovers about rakija. This time klekovača, the leader of the special rakijas, gets its five minutes: the first of several pieces on special rakijas flavoured with juniper and herbs, such as brinjevec, genever, anisette, mastika and travarica.
Juniper berries
Juniper berries, alone or with other aromatic herbs, flavour many spirits around the world; the drinks differ in their base and in how they are made. In some places juniper itself is made into rakija, like brinjevec in Slovenia. Drinks dominated by juniper go by different names: klekovača in Serbia, borovička in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, genever in the Netherlands and France, Steinhäger in Germany, gin in England and America.
Almost only the berries of common juniper are used. Juniper is an evergreen, very hardy, densely and irregularly branched shrub with needle-like, prickly leaves, found here mostly on hills and in neglected, uncultivated places.
The berry ripens only in the autumn of its second year, so a single bush carries unripe green berries and ripe purple ones at the same time. Fully ripe berries are gathered, depending on altitude, from early August to late autumn; green berries, needles, twigs and other debris are removed.
The berries are dried in a covered, airy place in a thin layer, turned often with a wooden shovel; dry juniper is easier to clean by winnowing. The pea-sized berries are round and fleshy, with a pleasant balsamic scent; the taste is sweet at first, then aromatic and slightly bitter. Dried berries contain 1–2.5% essential oils and up to 30% invert sugar, about 10% resin, a bitter glycoside (juniperin), waxes, gums, organic acids and their salts, and cellulose.
Klekovača
Klekovača is a strong spirit in the category of special rakijas, made from rakijas and distillates of agricultural origin, or blends of them, with macerate and distilled macerate of juniper berries.
In Serbia whole berries are most often steeped in soft šljivovica for about four days and then distilled, usually 2–4 kg of dried juniper to 100 litres of soft šljivovica at 25% vol. This way the aromatic compounds of the juniper only partly distil over and all its sugar is wasted. The aroma passes into the distillate much more gradually if the berries are first ground, or at least crushed, and then macerated for at least 48 hours, taking care not to break the seeds; then 400–800 g of ground berries per 100 litres of soft rakija may be enough. Soft rakija rested for a year and juniper no older than a year give better quality.
Distillation
Simple copper stills heated by fire or indirect steam are used most often. About 1% of the volume of the raw soft rakija is separated as heads, then the heart is collected until its average strength is about 65% vol, and then the tails until the alcohol is exhausted. The heart rests for 3–6 months or longer and is gradually diluted with distilled or softened water to the strength of the finished drink.
Another way is to add two or three times as much ground juniper to the soft rakija. This gives a strongly flavoured distillate, a kind of essence for klekovača, which can then be blended with aged plum prepečenica to the right intensity, and using aged prepečenica in the blend can improve the klekovača considerably.
Klekovača is one of the best-known rakijas; you can even spot it in the much-loved Serbian film Lajanje na zvezde.
