Setting off from Lluisa Juanola’s rustic farmhouse in the shadow of the Pyrenean foothills, everyone is armed with an array of plastic bags and baskets and a list of some 65 herbs, fruits and flowers. Included are the aromatic herbs rosemary, thyme, sage and oregano, as well as flowers with exotic-sounding names such as horse’s tail and lion’s tooth, various types of ferns, stinging nettles and pine cones.
The most important ingredient for ratafia, though, is unripe walnuts. The tender green nuts, picked before their shells have hardened, form the base of the liqueur. They are steeped in alcohol along with the rest of the herbs and spices for a minimum of 40 days, a sol i serena (in the sun and night air) before being filtered straight into bottles or decanted into wooden containers for a further three months of ageing.
The commercial process is more complex with the herbs and spices added at different stages of the maceration process, and water and sugar used to adjust the alcohol content.
While Juanola’s list gives the quantities of each plant needed to make eight litres of ratafia, it is not an exact science. At the end of the afternoon the group have found about half of the plants listed and added another dozen. Extra ingredients such as coffee beans, lemon and orange peel, cinnamon sticks, freshly ground nutmeg and anise will also be needed as well as the liquorice-flavoured liqueur anisette, in which all the plants are left to soak.
The rest is down to the personal touch of the person making the ratafia. “Every year, even though we all collect the same plants, everyone’s ratafia comes out differently,” Àngels Camós explained.
Xavi Amat said the taste of the liqueur is also determined by the weather. “Every year it is different, even with the same ingredients. The climate has a lot to do with it—if the herbs aren’t well dried, if they have had a lot of sun or too little. In short, climate change also affects ratafia.”
His town, Santa Coloma de Farners, holds an annual ratafia festival during the second weekend in November, where the competition for the title of best home-brewed liqueur is fierce.
He has entered many times with his mother and friends, and although they have not yet won a prize he remains upbeat. “The level is very high. There are people who make ratafia in a masterly way. My prize is the satisfaction of seeing the happiness of my friends when they try the ratafia after a winter dinner.”
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