The birth of ABACATY Avocado Spirits

The corona crisis has caused many of us to rethink things. In the global deceleration caused by the corona crisis, many people in industrialised countries have questioned their situation, their way of life and also their nutrition.

The SWANG spirits development team were tasked with developing and producing an egg liqueur for our customer in the summer of 2019.

Our previous soft drinks and spirits contained no animal ingredients. So why should we break with our tradition now? After a lot of thought we turned down our customers, because we wanted to continue to produce only products without animal ingredients.

The corona crisis has once again made it clear to us that infections and epidemics can be caused by animals and their factory farming. The first human infection with coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) apparently occurred at a fish market in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province. According to the news, other exotic animals were also offered for sale there. 

That means Covid-19 is another of the pathogens involved in recent epidemics, which are directly related to animal husbandry or the consumption of animal products. That’s why we don’t want to use any animal ingredients in the manufacture of our products.

During our research on the subject of egg liqueur we came across an old tradition from the 17th century. In present-day Brazil, European conquerors discovered a drink called "Abacate" among the indigenous people of the Amazon. It’s pronounced ABACATY, which is the Portuguese word for avocado. "Abacate", an alcoholic beverage of the indigenous people in Brazil, which was made with avocado by adding cane sugar and rum.

Dutch colonials of northern Brazil introduced this beverage to Europe as "advocat/advocaat". As avocados could not grow in northern Europe, they were replaced with egg yolk, thought to have a "similar taste" and consistency, and the name derived from the avocado stuck, although the drink no longer contains any. "Abacate"did not contain any animal ingredients. Advocat/advocaat liqueur is really an imitation of this native drink, using chicken eggs instead of fresh avocados.

The indigenous peoples living in Amazonia use and protect the nature surrounding them with deep respect. They live in harmony with nature and give back to nature what they take from it with their harvest, as do avocados.

The creamy texture of the drink was created by pureeing avocados. We were really excited about this and wanted to reinterpret this old liqueur recipe for people today. That’s how ABACATY avocado spirits were born.