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Jeropiga

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Chestnuts are usually accompanied with jeropiga during magosto festivities in Portugal.

Jeropiga is the name given to a traditional alcoholic drink of Portuguese origin that is prepared by adding aguardente to grape must.[1][2] The addition is made in the beginning of the fermentation process, making it different to another Portuguese traditional drink, the abafado, in which aguardente is added during the fermentation process.[1]

Preparation

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The usual given ratios for the confection of jeropiga are of two parts of must to one part of aguardente or brandy.[3][4] The must's natural fermentation process is interrupted by the addition of the alcohol.[5][6]

Jeropiga traditionally accompanies the magosto autumn festivals,[7] celebrated also in northern Spain and Catalonia, where the festival is known as Castanyada. Jeropiga is home-brewed and drunk throughout the year in Trás-os-Montes and the Beira regions in Central Portugal.

Historic use in fortified wines

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Historically, jeropiga has been added to Port wine to increase its sweetness,[8][9] in a practise that is still applied today to some fortified wines.[5] The historic use of jeropiga mixed with brandy and elderberries as a means of coloring in red wines has also been recorded.[8] Nineteenth-century English writers largely dismissed jeropiga when discussing the port wine trade, with W. H. Bidwell calling it an "adulteration used to bringing up the character of ports".[3] In 1844, the English wine merchant Joseph James Forrester anonymously published A Word or Two on Port Wine, a pamphlet that, among other criticisms made to the wine trade in the Douro region, denounced the use of jeropiga in wine.[10]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Decreto Lei n.º 326/88 - Capítulo III art. 18º" (PDF) (in Portuguese). Diário da República. 29 September 1988.
  2. ^ "Lei nº 7.678, de 8 de Novembro de 1988 - Capítulo IV art. 16º" (in Portuguese). Palácio do Planalto. 8 November 1988.
  3. ^ a b Agnew & Bidwell 1853, p. 62.
  4. ^ "São Martinho: How to make jeropiga at home?" (in Portuguese). Vortex Magazine. 7 November 2015.
  5. ^ a b Mayson 2018, p. 363.
  6. ^ Souza, Peixoto & de Toledo 1995, p. 177.
  7. ^ "Jeropiga" (in Portuguese). Direção-Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  8. ^ a b Hassall 1876, p. 756.
  9. ^ Thudichum & Dupré 1872, p. 677.
  10. ^ Mayson 2018, pp. 30–32.

Sources

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Further reading

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