The farmer would keep the best stuff for himself, hiding it away for special occasions, such as sudden engagement announcements, deaths and damage caused by hail. It was good for toothache and after a Sunday roast. But always in moderation, hardly more than a hearty swig. This kind of "Chriesewässerle" (Cherry Water) made from wild cherries, with at least 45 per cent alcohol, is as hard to find nowadays as genuine brown trout, even in the Black Forest. A one-litre bottle of this rarity would cost well over a hundred German marks.

This is because, to make just one litre of this coveted elixir, you would need a good ten kilos of the tiny, aromatic, showy fruits, which are hardly bigger than blueberries and more than half of which are cherry stones. Nobody picks them any more. Even the wild cherries' relations, the dark red rowan berries and 'Hafer' cherries, have all but disappeared. But distillation rights have remained. Even now, there are around 14,000 approved distilleries in the Black Forest producing small and sometimes the tiniest amounts of schnapps, ranging from the simple fruit schnapps made from apples or pears to the distillates of local plums (Zwetschgen), other kinds of plums and mirabelles, right up to kirsch, the queen of all fruit brandies..

Fortunately, the area where Black Forest kirsch originates also includes the Markgräflerland, the Kaiserstuhl and the Rhine plain. Wherever vines grow, fruit trees are generally never very far away. Every Baden wine-grower who still has some fruit trees distils schnapps too, naturally.