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Árpád Distillery wins in a record-breaking new 100-point judged competition.

The 12th Quintessence Pálinka and Spirits Competition ended with a record number of entries and a double victory for Árpád Pálinka Distillery, which, in addition to the title of best commercial distillery, also managed to win the grand prize for best pálinka of the competition with their aged plum pálinka.

The 12th Quintessence Pálinka and Spirits Competition, organized by The Cultural Association of Onga attracted 2,177 spirit samples from Romania and Slovakia, in addition to pálinka entries from Hungary. The announcement of the results was part of a grand gala held on the last weekend of January in Debrecen, the regional center of Hungary’s Northern Great Plain region, where the best brewery and pálinkas and spirits of the 2169 evaluated and qualified samples were revealed. 

The pálinka and spirits that entered this year’s competition came from 265 entrants of 163 municipalities. The evaluation of the pálinkas and spirits took place in a 3 day event in the town of Onga from January 16 through January 18. During the three each sample was assessed by at least 6 expert judges of international team of 31 judges. The Grand and Champion prize-winning entries were reviewed by the entire panel of 31 judges.

The results gala was opened by Dr. Lajos Bognár, Deputy State Secretary for Food Chain Supervision at the Ministry of Agriculture, and Dr. Zsófia Koncz, Member of Parliament, while László Takács, Competition Director of the Quintessence Pálinka and Spirits Competition and President of the Ongai Cultural Association, provided the competition evaluation.

For the final winner's title, everyone competed with their eight best-scoring products, with mandatory categories and a number of strict entry restrictions. Out of the samples entered 354 were commercial batches, 535 were from contract distillers and 1,287 were pálinkas and spirits produced by private distillers.

The key indicators of the competition: total samples received: 2,177, written down: 2169 (100%), top jury: 771 (35%), gold: 362 (17%), silver: 520 (24%), bronze: 589 (27%), minor defects: 335 (15%), defective: 363 (17%). Of the commercially available samples, 34 were champion, or large gold medals, while there were 40 category-winning samples for private and contract distillers.

Grand Prize winners of the XII QUINTESSENCE Competition
  • "QUINTESSENCE - Best Commercial Distillery in 2022, Winner of the Competition". (Kisrét Pálinka Manufaktúra Kft. - Árpád Pálinka from Békéscsaba)

  • "QUINTESSENCE - best pálinka of 2022" aged plum pálinka (Kisrét Pálinka Manufaktúra Kft. - Árpád Pálinka from Békéscsaba)

  • "QUINTESSENCE - 2022 Audience Award Spirit" SC ZEKULHYDA SRL Magyarádi White Grape from Székelyhíd

  • "QUINTESSENCE - Best Private and Contract Distilled Pálinka of 2022" Attila Szabadics - apricot (from Zala County)

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