Pálinka and Sausage Festival in Budapest 2014

The Pálinka and Sausage Festival will be held the 8th time this year. The festival will take place in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. The Pálinka and Sausage Festival will open its gates again for the visitors at the Buda Castle offering more than 400 different types of pálinka.

Palinka festival

Pálinka is a traditional fruit brandy which is known by several names and it was invented in the Middle Ages. Only fruit spirits mashed, distilled and bottled in Hungary and similar apricot spirits from Austria can be called pálinka. The pàlinka is made of any kind of local grown fruits such as plum, apricot, apple, pear, cherry. This year the festival’s guest distillate will be whiskey.

During the Pálinka and Sausage Festival visitors can enjoy not only the pálinka and the water of life otherwise known as whiskey but the several handcrafted sausages, cheeses and other meat based specialties. The festival offers not only foods and drinks to try but there will be also live music concerts as well. The festival will start from 3rd until 5th of October 2014. A daily pass for the festival costs 2000Ft which includes a welcome shot and the tasting glass too.

For more information on the festival and location, read our article dedicated to this festival.

Palinka and Sausage festival coming back in 2013

The dates have been announced for the Palinka and Sausage festival in 2013. Tradition is followed and the dates are only announced a few weeks before the actual festival. So also this year, so in less than two weeks the festival will come upon us and it is possible to taste a wide selection of Hungarian Palinka and taste traditional sausuage.

As always there will be a special guest coming to the festival, and in 2013 that guest will be “rum.” This means that as you come to visit the festival area you will get several chances not only to taste the traditional Hungarian food and fruit spirit, but also taste a wide selection of rums. The entrance fee is 2000 HUF for a day ticket, which also gives you a small tasting glass which is a quite nice souvenir to bring with you home after some days in Budapest.

The area for the festival is the castle area, so again a great opportunity to enjoy a beautiful panorama and visit one of the most visited areas combined with this festival, all in one!

Hungarian sausage

Read more about other Budapest events and concerts.

Report from Palinka and Sausage festival 2012

Yesterday the Palinka and Sausage festival of 2012 was officially opened and the enjoyable festival will last until Sunday evening. We visited the festival on its first day, and here are our thoughts.

The first impression is that the festival reminds us of the beer festival in many ways. By the entrance you buy the ticket and you also buy an electronic card to which you add money, and later on the inside you use this card for payment everywhere, meaning that it is a moneyless festival. This system works fine, and since the first day of the festival is somewhat quiet, there were not really any lines or waiting time, so perfect!

Inside the festival area I was a bit amazed of the fact that there were much fewer stands than at both the beer festival and the wine festival. The Castle of Buda serves as the arena for the festival, but only the Lion and the Hunyadi courtyard. In these courtyards you could taste a whole lot of palinka, eat a lot of sausage and also taste tequila, which is the guest of honor at this years Palinka and Sausage festival.

The Hungarian fruit spirit normally has an alcohol content between 40% and 60%, so it is quite strong stuff. There were at least 20 different stands from where you could buy different kind of Palinka, and one of my friends tried a quite exclusive and expensive one; raspberry palinka. It was too strong for me, but it is cool to have tried it. Arpad is a famous producer of Palinka from Bekescsaba, and later we also tried some of their production, which tasted better then the previous Palinka (at least I think so… but, that is very subjective).

In the area there are quite some stands where you can buy warm sausages and eat them (like in any traditional Hungarian festival), and then you can buy different salamis and sausages and either bring them home or eat them together with bread at the festival area. One of the special sausages of Hungary is the one made from mangalica (a special hairy pig), so if you visit the area, try some mangalica sausage or ham. You can even buy salami from the Hungarian grey cattle (szürkemarha), which is something you do not get everywhere.

This is what the Mangalica looks like!

If you are not that much into Palinka then you can buy soft drinks at different places inside the area, and there are also two wine shops where you can buy different kinds of wine. They do not have the biggest selection, but considering the fact that it is a Palinka and Sausage festival it is not bad at all.

We visited the festival on the quiet opening day, but if you plan on visiting the festival today, tomorrow or on Sunday you can for sure expect more people (especially in the evenings), lots of strong Palinka, tasty sausages and lots of fun. Worth a visit!

The entrance fee for one day is 2000 HUF.

Lots of Palinka to taste at the festival

Palinka and Sausage festival this weekend

Apricot Palinka
Apricot Palinka

If you are in Budapest this weekend, why not check out the annual Palinka and Sausage festival arranged in the Castle area, near the Castle Hill Funicular. Here you can taste the best Hungarian sausages, and of course taste a whole lot of Hungarian Palinka, the Hungarian fruit brandy. The most popular Palinka is probably the apricot version, but you can also find Palinka made of for example plum, peach, apple, pear, strawberry and other fruits!

Read more about the Palinka and Sausage festival

Palinka and Sausage Festival 2011

The annual Palinka and Sausage Festival in Budapest is a very popular event bringing lots of Hungarian and tourists to the Castle area of Budapest to drink Palinka and to eat delicious Hungarian sausage. In 2011 the dates of the festival is October 6 – October 9. If you want more information about this great festival, check out our Palinka and Sausage Festival page.

Prague Airport transfer

Hot autumn in Budapest

I just read over at Caboodle.hu that Budapest experienced its hottest October 8 on record yesterday, with a high temperature of 28.5C. That is NICE! I like it at least. It is much nicer to do guided tours in such a weather, than when its blowing and freezing cold. But the winter is closing up on us, so I guess I will have to start wearing warmer clothes soon, but lets hope it will stay nice and warm for at least some more days and weeks!

For more information about the Budapest climate press the link, or for the average temperatures in Budapest, click that link!

By the way – do not forget to check out the Pálinka and Sausage festival this weekend (it started yesterday). I guess the people up there are happy about the weather.

If not, it is worth nothing that the Budapest Autumn Festival started today as well!

Palinka and Sausage Festival this weekend

Pálinka
Pálinka

Budapest is simply a festival town. There is always something going on, and when one festival is finished, another starts. Not long ago there was some small Pálinka Festival by the Danube on the Pest side, before that visitors could participate in the Wine Festival located in the Castle Area… And then you have the Autumn Festival and we could keep on writing!

Whats important now, is that starting this Thursday and keeping it up till Sunday people in Budapest can visit the Pálinka and Sausage festival in the Castle area. The Hungarian sausages are not very famous, but many claim that they taste just as good as Mortadella, Tyrolean and Viennese sausages.

The Pálinka is a real Hungaricum, protected by law since 2004, and you are only allowed to call the drink Pálinka if produced according to strict laws and rules.  Below you can see some of them:

1. it has to be made 100-percent from fruits or herbs indigenous to the Carpathian Basin and grown in Hungary, or from pomace grown in Hungary, and does not contain any additives,
2. it has to be produced and bottled in Hungary,
3. it has to have an alcohol content between 37,5% and 86% ABV.

So if this sounds interesting, check it out. You can read more about the entrance fees and about the festival at our Palinka and Sausage Festival page.

Events in Budapest