BALANCAL banana eau de vie is the first banana based distilled spirit from Madeira Island and one of the few produced in the World. There are around 6 kg of peeled bananas in this bottle. We rescued them from ending up in a landfill and let them ripen until they look and smell just right. We handpicked, hand peeled, and cut all the browns before sending them off on their journey to become this “water-of-life”. We are proud to have given these unwanted bananas a chance to show us their true spirit. After a long and clean fermentation, the banana wine was distilled in our CARL hybrid still with only the hearts reserved. It rested for a minimum of six months and, before bottling, pure mountain water was added, drop by drop, to reduce the alcohol content to 42.7% by volume.