Sunday lunch has come to mean a wander through the village to the Grenzglashuette (border glass works) whenever we can. A good uphill walk before lunch, checking the village noticeboard for new events as we go past. A stop to admire my favourite view in the village: along the old ‘iron curtain’ between folds in the mountains, with not a trace of the line which divided the continent for so many decades. Then into the glass works restaurant, now wonderfully pleasant since smoking in restaurants was banned at the beginning of the year and one of the recent success stories in the village. The food is good and astoundingly cheap. The reason for going at lunch time is that the restaurant is not open in the evenings and Sunday is the only day when we occasionally have the time to go out in the middle of the day. But this time the lunch ended differently. As we got ready to leave, we noticed a new sign chalked on the board over the beer taps ‘Baerwurz selbstgem.’ – home made made local schnaps! The owner showed us his latest venture, only visible at the moment to those needing the loos. Half way down the stairs to the cellar is a display case with a small explanation about schnaps (in German only until he emails us the text for translation) and some interesting looking glass jars. In a far corner of the cellar is the schnaps production area. ‘Real’ schnaps is produced without any distillation. The Baerwurz root, collected from the mountains above the 1,000 metre line, is scrubbed and then soaked in alcohol. After a while it is chopped and soaked some more, then filtered. This particular version will then be aged in an ash barrel. Blutwurz (another root) and blueberry versions are also in preparation, cranberry may follow. The traditional Bavarian Forest earthenware bottles are standing there waiting for the first main production to be ready. We were given a small bottle to try – not even labelled yet. So different from the mass produced versions available in supermarkets as a way of getting maximum alcohol consumption with in the shortest time.