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Its not quite
Your Grandmother’s
Liquor.
The story of the Kuchan
Nocino black walnut liquor
begins in Croatia in
the early 1970s when a 5
year old future Master Distiller
Davorin Kuchan’s
Grandmother would let him
try a small amount of her
walnut liquor with his dessert.
Using the still pictured
above she would use
up any extra walnuts that
fell to prevent waste and
made black walnut liquor
for the
family to
enjoy.
F ortyyears
later a much older Davorin
is giving his uncle a taste
of the walnut liquor he
made in America,
“Ehh, it’s pretty good
but it’s not quite your
grandmothers”
Well a year and a half later
Davorin made a bunch
of different recipes trying
to nail down what could
have been her secret. He
came back to Croatia with
a new batch one he really
thought he nailed and his
uncle said,
“Ehh, it’s pretty good
but it’s not quite your
grandmothers”
Davorin thought his uncle
was just leading him on
because he wanted to see
him every year. However,
two years later he used
agave as a sugar, which
lead to a much smoother
product. It’s similar
to the thick molasses
sugar basses his
grandmother would
use but much purer.
This time his uncle
said,
“Hmm, that’s
pretty good”
The rest is history.
8 CRAFT WINTER 2017