Guardia Sanframondi, in the Benevento hinterland, is where Regione Campania places Malaca. The work begins in open copper boilers, the traditional vessels for a boil that lasts about eight to ten hours. Foam is lifted away as it forms, so the must stays clear rather than cloudy, a small, repeated gesture that already hints at the drink’s later brightness.
Forty days on, the vessel is topped up completely. Then the barrel goes into the cellar, shut hermetically, and stays there for three years. By that time it is only half full; what remains is bottled, the cork stopped and sealed with mastic. Time, evaporation and a tight seal do the concentrating that no extra spice would need to invent.
What arrives in the glass is amber, liqueur-like, with a loaded, almost syrupy body and intense, lasting scents of apricot, pineapple and dried fruit. Strength is normally held between twenty-two and twenty-six degrees, with sugar at fifteen and alcoholic content at ten in the figures given. It is a slow Campanian sweet, built for sipping rather than haste.