Kovács Zsuzsa: Göcsej Village Museum. Exhibition Guide (Zalaegerszeg, 2008)

EXHIBITION GUIDE function in some other part of the farm. For example the once gilded but now shabby tálas (a special shelf to keep plates on) from the room, went to the pantry or to the attic and the old furniture was taken to the hill cellars. 12. 'WHEELED-WELL' FROM KÁVÁS On the Kávás croft a newer type of well can be seen, this is the wheeled-well. The bucket hanging from a chain could be lowered really deep into the well with the help of a wheel in order to get fresh, clean water. Therefore this kind of well was built where the water was deep down. There is a little wooden well house with thatched roof over the well, which would have been much appreciated when people had to pull up the many buckets of water on a cold and rainy day. 13. DISTILLERY-HUT FROM CSODE A spectacular building stands in the yard: the distillery, a heptagonal hut. A skilful peasant who was not a joiner but was very good at working with wood built it, at the end of the 1800s. He used bits from an old, wrecked logbarn. They grew many fruits in Göcsej, some were eaten raw, some were given to the animals and some were processed. They dried some fruit, and also made vinegar from pears and wine from apples. 'Pálinka' (strong spirit) was always made from plum and peach and was consumed as well as sold. Farmers transported their 'pálinka' on their own wagons; some of them went as far as Győr because the Göcsej 'pálinka' was very well known. This distillery was in use until 1914. This was the only one in the village so many people brought their fruit here to distil. According to practice, those who brought wood for the caldron were given their 'pálinka' on fifth, that is they got 4/5 part and the person who did the job was given 1/5 part from the spirit. Those who did not bring any wood got their spirit 'on third', that is they got 2/3 part and the distiller got 1/3. During the First World War, the copper dishes were all collected from the village; they took the distillery's copper cauldron too so the distillery could not be operated any more and the building was then used as a pantry.