The harvest is now in full swing. Everyone is busy packing – and so the whole family helps together, so that the elderberries can be brought to our cellar house in time for the rain. So that we do not run out of steam while cutting, grandma Farthofer prepares a hearty lunch.

Since 1997, the black elder culture “Haschberg” also grows and thrives on our organic farm in Biberbach called Sambucus Nigra. This is a native, Austrian variety. The result of our harvest was large, juicy elderberries. Despite the enormous dry period, the berries have matured particularly well. Due to the rain two weeks ago, they could still grow, and due to the intense sunshine, the sugar content was very high. That pleases Josef, because the sugar content is decisive for the distillate. Josef turns the wonderful elderberries into a fine organic elderberry brandy.

But before Josef can process the berries, the elderberries still have to be rubbed off – this is the process of removing the black, vitamin-rich berries from the umbels. These are not simply thrown into the trash with us. We attach great importance to resource-conserving handling of our raw materials. We use the umbels again as fertilizer. So the umbels are applied to our field of corn, where afterwards the Schlägl rye is to be cultivated. Of course, we also harvested the wonderfully fragrant elderflower in spring. From the white flowers an elderflower spirit was conjured and made some syrup for their own use.

By the way, one of Mostviertel’s culinary evergreens is the Hollerröster. Especially in this time, our tongue often turns very blue violet. Here is our recipe for you:

    • ½ kg of berries    
    •  ¼ l of water   
    •   2 lemon slices    
    •  1 pear   
    •   5 plums  
    •   10 dag of sugar    
    •  1/8 l sweet or sour cream    
    •  2 dag Maizena Cook the elderberries with lemon slices, pear slices and pitted plums until soft, sugar. Thicken with cream and Maizena ..

Poisonous elderberry? It’s all a holler!

No, it’s not a rumor that Holler can not be rawly distorted. Before you can enjoy the miracle berries, we have to heat them up a lot. The elderberries contain namely the ingredient “sambunigrin”, which can lead to digestive problems or stomach irritation if consumed excessively. For this reason, they are heated to about 80 degrees before further processing. In this process, the poison is decomposed and you can enjoy the small berries with a clear conscience and further processing. By the way, elderberry is considered an old home remedy, contains a lot of vitamin C and minerals and is supposed to have a fever reducing effect. For flu, it is very popular.