Official website of the Mallorca Hotel Business Federation
Typical products
Palo de Mallorca is a spirit obtained by the maceration and/or infusion of cinchona bark and gentian root (gentina lutea) with sugar, caramelized sucrose and ethyl alcohol. Its name is derived from cinchona bark (also known as palo quina), which originally came from South America and became known in Spain thanks to the Countess of Chinchón. Cinchona bark contains various different substances like quinine, which gives it a bitter, astringent taste but has antipyretic and anti-malarial properties.
The Arabs discovered and promoted efforts to distil alcohol back in the 9th century. The discovery spread to Europe at a later date (in the 12th and 13th centuries) thanks to Venetian traders. Monasteries and ecclesiastical orders played an important role in producing distillates and originally they were used for healing and medicinal purposes. In Mallorca, in the late 13th century, the native islander Ramon Llull made significant contributions to the distillation process. In the late 18th century there were 177 stills on the island used for making spirits, producing some 780,000 litres, 60% of which was directed at local consumption.
“Ametla Mallorquina" is a collective quality mark created by the Association for the Promotion of Mallorcan Almonds, which is used to identify the dried fruit of the almond tree (Prunus amygdalus B) that fulfils the technical quality standards contained in the regulation for the use of this mark.
An Ensaimada de Mallorca is an item of confectionary made of sugared dough that has been fermented and baked, with bread flour, water, sugar, eggs, starter dough and pig's lard as its ingredients. It is a highly traditional example of Mallorcan confectionary that has been made and eaten on the island over a consistently long period of time.
Sobrasada de Mallorca is a cured raw meat sausage, made with selected pork meats that are minced and seasoned with salt, paprika and other spices. The traditional need to find ways of conserving meat led to the development of numerous different ways of lengthening its useful life. One way is clearly by mincing, seasoning and curing the meat. The first historical reference to the name sobrasada can be found in a Sicilian document dated 1403, which describes a consignment of food products.
Proof has been found of links between Mallorca and wine back in the 6th and 7th centuries BC: a period with which a multitude of drinking vessels and other clay recipients have been associated, used for trading wine in the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, it seems that vines were not introduced to the island and grown there until its occupation by the Romans.
Mallorcan Oil is an extra virgin olive oil made with the fruit of the olive tree (Olea Europea) using the Mallorquina or Empeltre, Arbequina and Picual varieties, based on physical processes which ensure that the oil conserves the aroma, taste and properties of the fruit from which it is made. The soil characteristics, rugged landscape, irregular rainfall and great age of Mallorca's olive trees lead to a limited yield of olives that are suitable for good quality oil. At the same time, Mallorca's climate influences when it is best to harvest the olives, with an earlier harvest compared to other olive-growing regions. Thanks to all these factors and to the species of olive trees that can be found in Mallorca, the oils produced have different organoleptic properties. There is a sweet type that is made with olives that are beginning to ripen, whose main feature is its sweetness or mildness with almost no bitter or spicy flavour. Alternatively, there is a fruity kind that is made from green olives, whose sensorial properties are strongly characterized by a bitter, spicy quality.
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Mallorca Hotel Business Federation - NIF V07221435 - Aragón 215 3ª planta - (07008) Palma de Mallorca - Illes Balears - Spain.
Recorded in the Executive Office Deposit Statute of Professional Associations of the Balearic Islands, dated September 1977.