Fruit & Raw Material

In autumn, the shrubs of the strawberry tree, botanically Arbutus unedo, bear white blossoms and ripe fruit at the same time, since the berries of one year take about a year to ripen. The round fruits turn red to orange and have a rough, warty skin. The shrub is evergreen and bears dark, glossy leaves that are barely noticeable in autumn next to the fruit. The only thing it shares with garden strawberries is the color.

According to tradition, the epithet unedo goes back to the Roman scholar Pliny, who is said to have remarked that one eats only one: unum edo. Raw, the fruits taste mealy and mildly sweet. The Portuguese name Medronho later gave the brandy its name.

For the distillate, something else matters. The fruits bring enough sugar with them to ferment into alcohol on their own, provided they are well ripened. Studies from the University of the Algarve name exactly this as a condition: fermentation requires fruit in good ripening condition, otherwise the brandy suffers.

The shrub grows wild, in the hinterland of the Algarve as well as, for example, near Lousã further north, and it copes with poor soils where little else thrives. This makes it a raw material for mountain farmers. What grows on the slope is gathered, and distillation turns it into a product that can be stored and sold.

According to the literature, large-scale planted stands did not emerge until the 21st century; before that, farmers gathered the fruit by hand. Anyone traveling through the Serra de Monchique or the Caldeirão will therefore mostly encounter the Medronheiro growing wild among cork oaks and scrub.