Yes,’fröccs’ is an alcoholic beverage, it is very popular in Hungary again. And who do you think was one of the greatest fans of this special mix of wine and soda water? You would not think, Ferenc Puskás, the champion. (Photograph: Puskás, 1949 by fortepan.hu)

If you visit Hungary, you will certainly meet many professional tourist guides, who will tell you, what ’fröccs’ is. That’s why I would not like to bother you with superfluous information now. Just the basic facts!

 New Wines from the Sand

 In the last four decades of the 19th century a new vermin, the grape phylloxera had begun to destroy the vinyards in all over Europe. Almost the whole territory of the historical Hungarian wine regions became dead in a short time.

 After a while some genious Hungarian scientist recognised, that the grape phylloxera, what attacts plants from the roots, does not stand the sand. They tried to plant new types of grapes into the sandy ground and they were succesful in it. It was the beginning of a new period of the wine producing in Hungary. We call the types like ’Mézesfehér’, ’Szilváni’, ’Zöld Veltelini’, ’Kadarka’, ’Ezerjó’ types-from-the-sand. These are very flavourful wines, but neither of them is as high quality one as ’Aszú’, ’Furmint’ or ’Cabernet Franc’, ’Cabernet Sauvignon’.

Wine and soda water: 'fröccs' by the Lake Balaton (Photograph: Wikipedia)

People in Hungary started to drink these wines with soda water, what was created by Joseph Prestley in the 18th century. About seventy years later Ányos Jedlik, a Hungarian teacher, scientist, and a Benedictine monk was the first, who began the industrial producing of the soda water, or as he called it, the ’sour water’.

 Wines from the sand were fresher with soda water. The mix was named ’spriccer’ (it came form the German 'Spritzer') at first but Mihály Vörösmarty, a great romantic Hungarian poet though,t it was ’too German’ that’s why he created the ’fröccs’ word.

In and out of Fashion

 To drink a ’fröccs’ with friends was still a tipical social habit for people in the 1970’s. Although Hungarian breweries produced very fine beers, the main beverage was the wine for a long time. At the secound part of the communist era, from the 1980’s Hungarian people drank beer, vodka, brandy, sweet liquers, vermouth and other import beverages like whisky, what were very expensive for an everage pocket in these times. ’Fröccs’ went out of fashion.

 Thanks to the hypster culture, it has brought ’fröccs’ for us again. Now we can mix it diffrent ways and we give a name to each single variants. Guides will tell you all of these, or you can get to know some of them here. 

The Favourite Drink 

I read an essay on the social context of the Hungarian lower middle class in the uptowns of Budapest after the WWII. Ferenc Puskás had come from this context. He was grown up in Kispest, this is a very small destrict of Budapest, but until 1950 it was an autonomous smalltown on the Southern side of the city. It had a specific atmosphere with its peculiar characters and social habits. A succesful soccer player was a real star in a this kind of cummunity.

Puskás' statue in Óbuda, Budapest (Photograph: Wikipedia)

 And the young Puskás was succesful, at the beginning in his local club (it was the Kispest AC, later the Honvéd) and then as a member of the Hungarian national team.

 It was wery important for Puskás and his team members to go restaurants, pubs. People wanted to see them, to talk to them, to have a party with them. The restaurant owners gave free drinks and in exchange for it the sportmen came down handsomely.

Ferenc Deák 'Bamba'  soccer player, world recorder in goal kicking and Puskás are drinking 'fröccs' (Photograph: Puskás Akadémia)

 Puskás’ favorit drink was ’fröccs’, more exactly ’kisfröccs’ – it is 1dl dry white wine and 1dl soda water. According to the anecdotes, he was always happy, he always told stories and he always drank ’kisfröccs’.

 All in all, with or without drinking he was one of the best succer players in the world.

 Let’s have a drink to remember him!