It has a dark black colour and it intensely smells of herbs – we are talking about a very special Hungarian drink – it’s the “Zwack Unicum”. Today we uncover a historical family secret about the original "Unicum" receipt.
For its preparation of the "Unicum" liqueur 40 different medical herbs are used. Since more than 200 years, its served for dinner in Hungary. And the history of this popular Hungarian drink itself dates back to antiquity. But for the founding family of the “Zwack Unicum” life wasn’t always a bed of roses. Today we uncover the secret how Socialism made family Zwack using a crafty trick to safe the pleasant bitter or rather the secret family receipt.
„Doctor Zwack! This is a unicum!“
According to the family legend, everything started with this sentence – before more than 220 years in Vienna. Doctor Zwack was the court physician of Joseph II. The emperor constantly had some stomach problems. Therefore the doctor mixed a liqueur out of different herbs for “His Imperial Highness”. The drink didn’t only mitigate the emperor’s stomach problems, the taste of the liqueur was also a pleasure for him. 50 years later, the relatives of the doctor started the liqueur production in Budapest. The products and with this the company was so successful that they had to move the factory. They built a big factory at the banks of the Danube at the former outskirts. With the help of the secret recipe of the former imperial doctor, they could start the “Unicum”-Production there in 1883.
The "wrong Unicum"
The brick building in Franzstad (IX. District, Budapest) is the headquarter and the heart of the factory. Here the “Unicum”, Hungary’s most famous herb liqueur is produced.
But what was sold as “Unicum” wasn’t always the original one. Because when the factory was nationalized in 1948, the Zwack family took the original recipe abroad. The new socialist lords of the factory got another recipe with falsified incredients. This “wrong Unicum” flew in socialist times only to the countries of the eastern bloc. In the West, the Zwack family sold the original liqueur and ensured that the socialist Hungary couldn’t sell a bottle with the inscription “Zwack Unicum” in the West. Only since “The Turn” the factory in Budapest produces again the Original “Unicum”. The wrong disappeared.
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