Castle Distillery below Ľubovňa Castle: fruit spirits and tastings

A distillery by the castle walls

Stará Ľubovňa is a town in northern Spiš, overlooked by Ľubovňa Castle. For more than three and a half centuries Ľubovňa was one of the Spiš towns pledged to the Polish crown, and its history is closely intertwined with Poland. According to Castle Distillery, distilling in the castle’s outskirts goes back to 1343, when the town received the right to sell drink; first a wooden distillery stood here, and in the mid-18th century, when the area below the castle was rebuilt on the initiative of the Polish queen Maria Josepha, a stone one replaced it. On this site, in the former castle estate, the modern Castle Distillery opened in 2022.

Spiš has a fruit-growing tradition of more than three hundred years. Between the wars the owner of the estate below the castle, Count Jan Kanty Zamoyski, planted three orchards here with apples, pears, plums and walnuts. Only one has partly survived — right next to the distillery; it is being tended and gradually restored so that it will hum with bees again.

The distillery’s website also tells the story of the fruit behind its spirits. The Bystrica plum is considered the best for slivovica thanks to its high sugar content; for apple brandy it uses, among others, the old White Astrachan variety, for pear brandy the Hardy’s Butter pear (Hardyho maslovka), and for borovička juniper berries. Only fully ripe, clean, healthy and fragrant fruit is picked. The distillery links Spiš’s fruit-growing tradition to Maria Theresa, by whose decree fruit growing was a compulsory school subject for decades.

Why go

• Copper stills on show. The heart of the distillery is its copper columns by the German firm Arnold Holstein: fruit mash is distilled in batches in 300-litre stills, all clearly visible to visitors.
• A tasting. The "experience tasting" is booked for a set time — 16:00, 17:00, 18:00 or 19:00 — via the website form.
• A distillery tour. For groups and families the time is arranged individually on request.
• Your own spirit. Growers can bring their own fruit mash and take home a spirit with a personalised label; everyone using the service gets two free tickets to Ľubovňa Castle.

What to taste and buy

The classics are slivovica (including from the old Bystrica plum), apple, pear, apricot and sour-cherry brandies, raspberry, strawberry and cornelian-cherry spirits, and borovička — the juniper spirit beloved in Spiš. There is also vodka and several gins (London Dry, strawberry, raspberry, apricot). Bottles are sold in the distillery shop and online. A tasting can be combined with lunch in the restaurant, which serves simple traditional food with views of the High Tatras.

Practical information

Address: Zámocká ulica, 064 01 Stará Ľubovňa — below the castle, next to the Ľubovňa open-air museum and the road up to the castle; about 2 km from the town centre. Parking by the complex. Hours: daily 10:00–21:00 (as of October 2026). Booking tastings and tours: +421 905 220 573, +421 52 381 03 85, [email protected]; distilling service for growers: +421 907 481 586. Ask about tasting prices when booking. Spirits are for adults only.

Nearby

• Ľubovňa Castle — the fortress above the town, a few minutes’ walk.
• Ľubovňa open-air museum — a wooden village below the castle.
• Pieniny and the Dunajec raft trip — about 15 km; the raftsmen of Červený Kláštor.

Official website: castledistillery.sk

Photos: cms.castledistillery.sk.