Smooth and pleasantly fruity-sweet, with a fine wood barrel note – that's the taste of the popular Old Varieties. Decades of experience, love for fruit, joy in the art of distilling and a lot of patience enable us to produce these exceptional barrel-aged specialities. Discover all eight Old Varieties, including Old Apricot, Old Williams Pear and Old Forest Raspberry. Learn more here »
As with all schnapps from the Prinz Distillery, we use only the best fully ripe fruit for our Old Varieties. Other indispensable ingredients for our wooden barrel specialities are four generations of experience, a passion for fruit, processes developed in-house and modern technology.
The aroma-preserving fruit distillates are allowed to mature twice: first, for up to six years in stoneware and then for up to two years in carefully selected wooden barrels. It sometimes takes eight years before a fruit is bottled as an Old Variety, and you can taste the quality and care in every sip!
The delightful fruity sweetness is provided by dried fruit extracts which are produced by the master distiller using Prinz's special process. Made from the same fruit as the distillates, these extracts are used to refine the barrel-aged distillates into our exceptional Old Varieties.
The time taken to mature gives each variety not only a fine wood barrel note but also a characteristic amber shimmer, making each full bottle a pleasure to look at. You will immediately recognise the Old Varieties: traditional swing-top bottles with amber-coloured joy inside.
How many barrel-aged Old Varieties are
available from Prinz?
You can enjoy our barrel-aged schnapps specialities in eight different fruit varieties:
All matured at the Prinz Distillery for your enjoyment.
Original Old Varieties mature for many months in special Prinz wooden barrels
Why do Prinz Old Varieties taste so smooth?
With an alcohol content of 41% vol, Old Varieties show the intensive varietal character of the fruits. There are also three special elements that ensure that this schnapps speciality tastes so smooth. First, the distillates are distilled in a particularly gentle vacuum distillation process. Then they are left to mature in special Prinz wooden barrels. At the appropriate time, the master distiller refines them with dried fruit extract, which is what gives this schnapps its subtle, sweet note. This means that the Old Varieties taste much smoother than a traditional fruit spirit.
What is the impact of storage in a wooden barrel?
Storage in wooden barrels changes the flavour and colour of the distillate over time. First of all, the wood removes bitter substances from the distillate: this is the smoothness that you taste with every sip. Furthermore, the alcohol releases tannins and flavours from the wood: this is the wood barrel note that resounds on your palate. In addition, the distillate and the wood react with each other, which changes the visual and taste characteristics of the product. Overall, many factors influence the final result, including the type of wood, the age of the barrel, the size of the barrel, the temperature of storage and the length of storage. We let the Old Varieties mature until they are equally pleasing to the eye, nose and palate.
What kind of wood are Prinz wooden barrels made of?
Prinz barrels come in different types of wood, including acacia, mulberry and cherry – all aged to perfection. We often use oak barrels, also known as barriques, with a capacity of 225 litres. The master distiller needs a lot of experience and intuition to select the right type of wood as the barrel needs to harmonise with the distillate. Only with harmonisation will the schnapps have a wood barrel note that perfectly matches the fruit flavour.
What is so special about Prinz's dried
fruit?
As with all other ingredients, we only use the best fully ripe fruit for our dried fruit. After quality control at Obsthof Leiblachtal, the fruit is immediately washed and gently dried in our drying facility.
You can even buy the tasty dried fruit in our in-house Distillery Shop in Hörbranz. Unsurprisingly, this nutrient-rich snack tastes especially great with a schnapps!
Williams-Christ pears are gently dried
How to best enjoy Prinz Old Varieties
It is best to drink our Old Varieties from a Prinz Schnapps Glass with a stem – at a temperature of 17 to 21 °C.
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