Jezdić Rakija — The Jezdić family story

I · II · III · IV · V

Our story begins in the autumn of 1999.

Spontaneously — almost by accident.

Continue the story

Hearth

The land

In the time after the bombing, when a great many things had to be built again from nothing.

Its roots, though, run much deeper.

In 1943, on an inherited homestead in the village of Zabrdica near Valjevo, the family suffered terribly when a German punitive expedition burned the houses along the main road.

Memory

That night, only ruins and orphans remained in the village — but a small estate, some 60 ares, survived.

The last keeper of the family hearth was a great-aunt on the mother's side.

The first memories of the village are childhood images: riding grandmother's ram, the rented still where plum was distilled, scenes and sayings you remember for life.

And yet for a long time, in keeping with youthful enthusiasm and inexperience, the wish was to build a life and a career somewhere else.

1999.

Instead, a new idea arrived — that if the chance ever came, the estate would be widened and restored.

Though in that moment it felt distant and almost impossible, a few years later — after the first roles on stage and in television — another 50 ares of land were bought.

That is precisely where our distillery stands today.

Cherry Orchard

The drama

In the years that followed, alongside the acting career, the estate grew step by step.

New hectares were bought, and the first plantings were made in 1999.

Inspired by his daughters and by Chekhov's play, our first cherry orchard came into being.

Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard (1904). „An orchard older than I am, all a single white blossom…“

2002.

10 TONA

Nearly 10 tonnes of cherries harvested.

By 2002, almost 10 tonnes of cherries had been harvested.

And with that came the first real reckoning with the oldest peasant grief — the uncertainty of the market. You grow, you tend, you pick — and you do not know whether you will be paid.

That key year, a buyer first offered a fair price, then — on delivery — tried to break the value of a first-rate harvest.

It was then that we made what would prove the decisive choice.

NEĆEMO DATI VOĆE U BESCENJE.

OD NJEGA ĆEMO NAPRAVITI RAKIJU.

III

Still

The craft

We borrowed a still and the equipment and, with the help of our friend the technologist Miša Cilić, we distilled our first batch.

Out of ignorance and intuition, part of it was left to rest in wood.

And with that very rakija, a few years later, we won our first major gold.

Selo
The village brought discipline, patience, and the facing of the uncertain.
Zabrdica, in the orchard

Pozorište
The theatre, on the other side, imagination, vision, and the steady need to make.
„Knjiga o Milutinu“, the bow

The two worlds never fought — they completed each other.

Dedication

We learned the craft from books, at the Faculty of Agriculture, and from the experience of other householders, neighbours and friends.

Along the way, experts generously shared what they knew:

Miša Cilić
Peđa Vukosavljević
Ljubiša Stanković
professor Ninoslav Nikićević

Every year since has been a year of buying and growing fruit, of household scale production turning more and more serious.

Only when there was no longer any place to store it, in 2011, did the sale of rakija begin.

All the while, every income was invested back into the estate. Machinery, orchards, buildings — everything built with great sacrifice.

For years almost the whole property was under mortgage, with one clear aim: to build a sustainable, authentic homestead.

From the outside it often looked irrational; on the inside the vision was perfectly clear.

Alongside the estate, the acting life ran on.

For years, almost the whole property was under mortgage, with one clear aim: to build a sustainable, authentic homestead.

For us, rakija is made in the orchard.

Everything that follows — fermentation, distillation, ageing — is only the continuation of that work.

A million percent

of a hundred percent fruit.

Today, after nearly three decades, the imperative of quality and continuity is unchanged, and the work is as devoted, as traditional and as hand-made as it ever was.

We grow our own fruit on about 50 hectares, and from it, in limited batches, come the plum, sour cherry, pear and quince rakijas — and the honey one.

Every bottle of Jezdić rakija has come out of years of effort — and out of a clear decision to produce and sell only what we can proudly stand behind by name.