Rajika, esp. honey rakija - where can I find it in Chicago?

I hae made inquiries with my Serbian mafia, but will ask here, too - where can I find honey rakija, and/or the greatest possible variety of rakija, in the Chicago area? I'm getting married in September, and as Balkan culture has been such a formative element in our relationship (and as I have various Balkan friends who will be coming to the wedding), it would be nice to have a bottle or two on hand. The Croatian friend who is normally the source of such items usually buys them on visits home; he isn't going this summer, and his stock is depleted. I am checking my contacts, but any ideas are welcome - so far the guy I talked to at Binny's didn't know what it was.

I've seen Croatian-made slivovica/slivovitz (plum rakija) at Sam's and various Polish groceries, but I can't remember seeing anything other than that type of rakija commonly available. When I lived briefly in the Balkans, slivovica was by far the predominant rakija, at least in Western Slavonia. I, too, would be curious to hear if there's a more extensive source in the Chicagoland area.

City Fresh Market has at least 5 or 6 different Rakijas. They run about $25/litre. I am pretty sure they are all of the immature grape brandy variety (they also have many types of Slivovitz), but I can't understand some of the bottles. They seem to be mostly Macedonian and Montenegrin in origin. They are towards the back of the store near the cheese, wine and sausages.

City Fresh Market
3201 W Devon Ave (enter on Kedzie)
Chicago, IL
(773) 681-8600

PS. They also have a nice selection of Balkan, Hungarian and Romanian wines including some really unusual local varietals. Plus they carry several brands of Serbian and Croation beers (my fave is Karlavacko).

corrected the spelling of Rakija, having been laughed at by a Serbian co-worker because of my pronunciation.

d4v3 wrote:City Fresh Market has at least 5 or 6 different Rajikas. They run about $25/litre. I am pretty sure they are all of the immature grape brandy variety (they also have many types of Slivovitz), but I can't understand some of the bottles. They seem to be mostly Macedonian and Montenegrin in origin. They are towards the back of the store near the cheese, wine and sausages.

City Fresh Market
3201 W Devon Ave (enter on Kedzie)
Chicago, IL
(773) 681-8600

PS. They also have a nice selection of Balkan, Hungarian and Romanian wines including some really unusual local varietals. Plus they carry several brands of Serbian and Croation beers (my fave is Karlavcko).

Thanks for the tip! I will have to check that out - luckily I have various South Slavic friends for linguistic consultation purposes, plus I know Russian, so I can generally figure out more or less what stuff is (and the word for "honey" is pretty similar in the Slavic languages I am familiar with).

Eva Luna wrote:Thanks for the tip! I will have to check that out - luckily I have various South Slavic friends for linguistic consultation purposes, plus I know Russian, so I can generally figure out more or less what stuff is (and the word for "honey" is pretty similar in the Slavic languages I am familiar with).

I should point out that City Fresh also has a locked cabinet of more expensive liquor closer to the registers (which appear to be mostly vodka and the fancier Armenian brandies). I asked a Serbian friend about honey rakijas, and she had never heard of the stuff (just plum, pear or grape), but she is from near Beograd and not really a drinker. You could probably ask the management if they can get it from a distributor. BTW, they have a fantastic bakery section, that makes great cream, chocolate and fruit filled cakes, cookies and napoleans.

Another Balkan Market that carries liquor is the Devon Market. Eurostyle Deli in Skokie is Russian, but carries many liquors from the former Soviet satellite nations (including some truly exceptional vodka from Mongolia). You might give them a call. The Famous Liquors in Rogers Park is also Russian, but may have what you are looking for.

Devon Market
1440 W Devon Ave,
Chicago, IL 60660
(773) 338-2572

Eurostyle Sausage Company
4861 Oakton St, Skokie, IL
http://www.eurosausages.com
(847) 329-1430

d4v3 wrote:

Eva Luna wrote:Thanks for the tip! I will have to check that out - luckily I have various South Slavic friends for linguistic consultation purposes, plus I know Russian, so I can generally figure out more or less what stuff is (and the word for "honey" is pretty similar in the Slavic languages I am familiar with).

I should point out that City Fresh also has a locked cabinet of more expensive liquor closer to the registers (which appear to be mostly vodka and the fancier Armenian brandies). I asked a Serbian friend about honey rakijas, and she had never heard of the stuff (just plum, pear or grape), but she is from near Beograd and not really a drinker. You could probably ask the management if they can get it from a distributor. BTW, they have a fantastic bakery section, that makes great cream, chocolate and fruit filled cakes, cookies and napoleans.

Another Balkan Market that carries liquor is the Devon Market. Eurostyle Deli in Skokie is Russian, but carries many liquors from the former Soviet satellite nations (including some truly exceptional vodka from Mongolia). You might give them a call. The Famous Liquors in Rogers Park is also Russian, but may have what you are looking for.

Devon Market
1440 W Devon Ave,
Chicago, IL 60660
(773) 338-2572

Eurostyle Sausage Company
4861 Oakton St, Skokie, IL
http://www.eurosausages.com
(847) 329-1430

Thanks - I've been to Devon Market and Eurostyle before, but wasn't really perusing the liquor section carefully with this kind of thing in mind (and I'm not much of a drinker myself), so I will give them another go. (Eurostyle, in particular, is right next to Marketplace on Oakton, which is one of our regular grocery stops anyway.) The friend who normally has the stash of honey rakija tends to get it straight from the people who make it - he often comes home from trips to see his parents laden with mysterious alcohol in plastic mineral water bottles with various bunches of herbs soaking in it. He gets a lot of funny looks going through Customs.

Oh yeah, one more suggestion is the Liquor Barn in Niles. They have a pretty wide array of Eastern European and Russian stuff (including vodka bottles shaped like AK-47s). I used to get my favorite Croatian beer there before the brewer was bought out by Heineken, making it much more widely available.

Liquor Barn
8170 W Golf Rd,
Niles, IL 60714
(847) 581-0060

All these places I've been, but are totally slipping my mind! Fabulous ideas, all.

Now if I could just get my family to stop driving me insane, I could get to the fun part of the planning...

Update: Eurostyle Deli has tons of former Soviet stuff (half a billion obscure vodkas, tons of Armenian brandy, Moldovan and Georgian wine, etc.) but not really rakija per se. Cardinal Liquors (recommended by the Evanston jeweler who is making our rings, who turned out to be Bulgarian, and will also ask around for us), just north of the intersection of Lincoln & Western, has some of the more common stuff (grape, plum, and I think apricot), but no honey rakija (but I'm glad I went in there, because it's a neat little place, and at least we can get the more mainstream stuff there).

Still need to check the other couple of places, and see if some of my other Balkan dance troupe member friends have any inside connections - I'll let y'all know what I find out. The jeweler also said we should poke around Des Plaines, because a lot of Bulgarians are living there these days. And Liquor Barn is fun, anyway, if only for the Russian eavesdropping, one of my favorite guilty pleasures.

I checked out City Fresh last night. They too, have several grape, pear, plum and apricot rakijas and brandies, but I did not see any honey-based liquor. They did have a bottle with a Russian label, that I believe was flavored with juniper (and perhaps honey). If it wasn't closing time, I would have asked one of the managers. I did a little research, and found that honey is sometimes added after distillation to plum or grape Rakija as a sweetener, usually with medicinal herbs, but the liquor itself is not actually fermented and distilled from honey. In the winter, grape or plum rakija is often served by heating it with honey and herbs (greyana rakija), like a super-strong mulled wine or a toddy. So it seems, that with the right recipe and herbs, you could make your own honey flavored Rakija from any Slivovitz or Loza (grappa). If you want to become a moonshiner here are a couple of links on distilling Serbian plum rakija and Isterian grape rakija (which is distilled from the 'must' leftover from winemaking).

http://palachinka.blogspot.com/2008/10/ljivovica.html
http://www.istrianet.org/istria/gastron ... memade.htm

Here is another short blurb about the preparation and use of flavored Rakijas in Croatia. It also includes a "recipe" for a drink called "Serbian Death" which consists of just Slivovitz and Tabasco sauce (reminiscent of the Texas Prairie Fire).
http://www.europe-cities.com/en/694/cro ... 77_rakija/

added note: Cardinal Liquors (mentioned above) routinely has 12 packs of DAB beer for $10, a pretty good deal for an OK German beer. It is a good middle of the road "party beer", not too wild for the Bud crowd, but tasty enough for more cultured beer drinkers.

:: bump ::

OK, now this is hilarious. One of my aforementioned East European friends stopped by last night, and mentioned that he'd been Googling around trying to find honey rakija for me in the U.S., and got all excited to find a relevant Google hit.

It was this thread. Of course, he immediately knew it was me.

I've only had Bulgarian rakia. The best I've ever had there is barrel-aged Burgas 63. I'm a musician in Chicago and I play in a few groups that perform Bulgarian, Roma (Gypsy), and Macedonian music. I've also traveled to Bulgaria a number of times and have many close friends there. That is to say, I know a lot of serious Balkan drinkers, and they all affirm that barrel-aged Burgas 63 is at the very least a contender for best rakia.

here is the only place in Chicago(land) that I know of where you can buy it - http://www.sofiausa.com

garcho wrote:I've only had Bulgarian rakia. The best I've ever had there is barrel-aged Burgas 63. I'm a musician in Chicago and I play in a few groups that perform Bulgarian, Roma (Gypsy), and Macedonian music. I've also traveled to Bulgaria a number of times and have many close friends there. That is to say, I know a lot of serious Balkan drinkers, and they all affirm that barrel-aged Burgas 63 is at the very least a contender for best rakia.

here is the only place in Chicago(land) that I know of where you can buy it - http://www.sofiausa.com

Thanks for that! And hey, do I know you? (The friend whose pig roast indirectly led to my upcoming wedding is a member of Balkanske Igre.)

:: bump :: No honey rakija at Liquor Barn in Niles, either. I have yet to check any of the places on Devon Ave. or Des Plaines, but it's looking like my best chance is if my friend's parents visit from Croatia. As of today, I have 2 months left, which is about what they have left before their immigrant visas expire, so they'd better get cracking!

Anyone know if it's possible to ship alcohol internationally if you're not commercially set up for that sort of thing?