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Wine / Spirits Education in Belgrade
Serbia's capital at the meeting of the Sava and Danube: fortress ruins, kafana nights, a defiant art scene, and the western Balkans' cultural hub.
Why here
Rakija is Serbia's national spirit, protected geographic origins and all, and Belgrade is where its education happens: the city's first open-type craft distillery runs forty-five-minute tours through the stills before pouring flights of twenty-plus small-batch rakijas, from quince and apricot to walnut liqueurs, and guided rakija tours add the connoisseur's frame, how sljivovica differs from dunja, why the toast matters, what a proper first sip looks like. This is spirits education in the culture that lives it daily rather than performs it, and the price of a full guided tasting in Belgrade is roughly one cocktail in London.
Best months
Year-round and indoors. Tastings are adults-only and book direct; evening slots fill on weekends. Pair with a kafana dinner and the education continues unsupervised.
Getting there & around
The distillery and tour meeting points sit in central Belgrade, walkable from the old town. Book a day or two ahead.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Belgrade Art Tours
GuideBelgrade Art Tours runs a one-hour private rakija tasting visiting a traditional distillery, with a presentation by a rakija connoisseur, tasting shots and finger food, ending with coffee at a local coffee shop. It books on demand rather than to a schedule, in English or Serbian, adults only, from 40 euros per person. Rakija is one strand of a wider program spanning street-art tours with a graffiti workshop, craft beer, wine tastings and a Yugoslav modernist architecture bike tour, run with sister company Still in Belgrade.
Belgrade Urban Distillery
OutfitterBelgrade Urban Distillery is the first open-type micro distillery in Belgrade, running tours and tastings around the small copper stills where its Branko rakijas are double-distilled. More than twenty spirits span plum, apricot, quince, apple and pear rakijas plus gin, bitters and fruit and honey liqueurs; orchard work and first production happen in south Serbia, with aging and bottling in the city. On site are a shop, a cocktail bar, the Barrel House restaurant and a Rakia Bank for private barrel aging.
Also good for wine / spirits education in September:
Torn between Belgrade and Beaune for September?
A plan settles it for your skill and budget, same-day.