The “Medronho” brandy is a regional product from Serra do Caldeirão, produced from certified organic arbutus and according to traditional methods, using some of the systems from 40 years ago.

The arbutus is selected and harvested by hand between the months of October and November, to prevent frost and rain from spoiling the delicate fruit. It is then packed in stainless steel fermenters where they remain for about 40 to 50 days. After the fermentation process, a kind of dough is obtained (fruit after fermenting) which is then distilled in a copper still heated with wood fire. The distillation takes about 4 hours to complete, after which we obtain the famous arbutus brandy, finally packed in stainless steel vats, analyzed and bottled.

This is a time-consuming process, so that the final product has the best quality. The distillation of fermented fruits in copper stills expanded in the Mediterranean basin from Egypt in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. This technology would have been absorbed by the Greeks, and later spread by the Arabs in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, around the 9th and 10th centuries. The artisanal still is still used in the Algarve today and maintains the characteristics of the one that was spread by the Arabs.