Getting fit doesn't have to be healthy

It had been a while since we’d been Nordic walking, a sport we engaged in pretty regularly last year. Well, lockdown rather knocked things on the head, and the new normal isn’t something you get back to, it’s something you construct. So it was good when we heard of a planned Nordic Walking trip up in the hills an hour and a half away, in the mountains of the Sierra de Espadán, just over the border from the Community of Valencia (where we live), in the neighbouring province of Aragon.

I enjoy the woodland near us, but it’s true that it’s nearly all evergreen. So it’s pleasant to find oneself among deciduous trees again. That’s what being in the Sierra does – you may only be 800 to 1000 metres up, but that’s enough to make a big environmental difference. The contrast between the pines and the autumn colours is spectacular and a refreshing change.

A pine in stark contrast to a blaze of autumn behind it

The company was excellent, the setting beautiful, our picnic (prepared by Danielle) delicious. So it would have been a good day even if it had included nothing more than that.

A great place to visit

But in fact, there was much more.

What had caught our attention in the information about the day was its reference to a famous Spanish drink. It was advertised as a Patzaran-making walk. Once we’d had our exercise, our coach was going to show us how to prepare it.

Now Patxaran – or Pacharán in standard Spanish – is a Basque drink, well known throughout Spain, and made from Aniseed spirit in which sloes (Aran in some Basque dialects) are steeped. But not just sloes: you add coffee beans, blackberries if you have any, cinnamon sticks, camomile flowers and, I’m sure, you could throw in other things to titillate the taste buds if you wanted to.

Now we couldn’t make the aniseed spirits since that would have involved operating an illegal still (as well as being a hard and time-consuming job). So for a small charge (the walk itself, as amazingly always seems to be the case with this kind of activity in Spain, was free), the coach would provide bottles and spirits. So essentially our contribution to ‘making’ the Patxaran came down to picking a few blackberries (there weren’t many left) and then a lot of sloes.

Let me say at once that picking sloes was quite time-consuming enough, before anyone points out that it’s a sloe business. I’m claiming that joke for myself.

A sloe, and prickly, business

Of course, picking them wasn’t that easy. I have the hand scratches to prove it. And we had to wash them and stick them in the bottles afterwards. With some coffee beans the coach kindly supplied (at no extra charge). The cinnamon and camomile we added at home.

The bottles filled, but the steeping barely started...
Note that the fluid remains clear

It was a lot of fun. And a most unusual way to end a session of sport. Proof, if any were needed, that while exercise makes you healthy, it can be combined with other activities which have exactly the opposite effect.

So now we have two bottles of sloes and other stuff gently steeping in the aniseed liqueur. I’m glad to say that they’re already beginning to look right. By February, the earliest time we’ve been told we can taste the product, it should really look and taste like Patxaran.

After all, it’s beginning to take on the tint already.

Patxaran, from Wikipedia (left) and our own.
Credit: By Ardo Beltz - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=872256

The irony is that I’ve never particularly liked Patxaran. But, dammit, I’m going to like this Patxaran. The walking and the thorns ensured that my sweat and blood literally went into preparing the drink, so nothing, not even my own taste, is going to stop me liking it.