Aura

Aura is a family distillery in Buzet in northern Istria, named after its founders' parents Aurelija and Radenko. It began in the early 2000s, when the family sold small amounts of biska, the local mistletoe brandy, from its gallery in Hum, and grew into a full distillery run by Mišel Sirotić. Production sits in a former wine cellar of just over 600 square metres built in 1907, which still holds its original barrels of about 11,000 litres and houses a shop and tasting room. Herbs and fruit are hand-picked on the slopes of Ćićarija and elsewhere in Istria and on the islands, then macerated for six months in a base distillate: grape marc for the herbal spirits, apple for the fruit ones, pear for the wild pear. The range covers twenty-five brandies and liqueurs, four gins, jams, chocolates and teas, with Teranino the best known.