How Krkonošská Blueberry and Cranberry Liqueur Was Created

After our arrival in the Krkonoše Mountains in 1996 at the Chata Jitřenka mountain lodge, we gradually began to discover regional gastronomy in greater depth. Our experience fully developed after moving higher up into the ridges to Chalupa na Rozcestí in 2010. (www.chalupanarozcesti.cz).

We work with basic ingredients that are inseparable from the mountains, such as mushrooms, potatoes, cabbage, legumes, and blueberries. We draw a lot of inspiration from collected recipes in the book by Jiří Marhold “Giant Mountains Cookbook” and from people in the Krkonoše region who still remember the old times.

We have especially focused on blueberries as a truly local ingredient.

Already at Jitřenka we started – we admit, somewhat out of laziness – serving just one, but very large blueberry dumpling with curd sauce, which remains very successful to this day. Naďa is in charge of baking cakes, not only blueberry ones, because we had to admit that hers taste the best. We also carried out various culinary experiments, such as chicken with blueberries, with varying success. We also prepare homemade blueberry lemonade.

We began macerating blueberries in fruit spirits. After years of testing, we decided to launch our own product on the market. We founded the company KRKONOŠSKÁ BORŮVKA to offer visitors of our mountain lodge – and not only them – our original liqueur.

As environmentally minded people (please do not confuse this with environmental activists) living and working in the highest parts of the Krkonoše Mountains, we respect all applicable regulations. The blueberries therefore do not come from protected harvesting areas and are picked in a gentle, sustainable way.

Naďa and Zdeněk Nikl