AGUARDENTE QUINTA VELHA
Filipe e Rui Duarte
MARMELETE
964 236 396
37°18’35.92”N 8°39’58.59”W
The business pertaining to the brothers Rui e Filipe Duarte was born on a plot of land with strawberry trees or medronheiros that their father owned at Porto do Lobo. It was here that in the middle of a field the family had a distillery, like many others that existed at the time, with a dirt floor and walls of dried mud. With time, this construction was abandoned to cultivate eucalyptus and distilling was eventually taken over by forestry and pig farming. When, fifteen years ago, the brothers came back to the ebullitions of the drink, it was now at Quinta Velha, in the borough capital, in a more spacious area, full of wood and with all the conditions appropriate for the production of aguardente and melosa, a by-product of medronho.
Even though wood cutting and pig farming occupy most of their days during the year, in Autumn and Winter, when it rains at weekends, Rui and Filipe get involved with the distillation. They say they really enjoy the occupation both for the picking and for the secrets of the distillation, thus countering the voices that prophesy the end of this activity.