Twenty years ago the Unicum House opened its doors, guiding visitors through the history of the Zwack family and the legend of Unicum. Located in the heart of District IX, the museum not only preserves the heritage of production and the secrets of the herbal liqueur but also offers visitors a captivating journey through time.
The legend of Unicum’s birth goes back several centuries. The first chapter begins on today’s Erzsébet tér, in the former Kemnitzer House, where Zwack József, the founder of the company, started production in 1840. The factory then moved to Két Szerecsen utca, then to Üllői út, before finally finding its permanent home on Soroksári út. It is still there today, together with the Unicum House, where – now as the only factory building in Budapest still in operation – it plays a special role in preserving the city’s heritage and history.
The trials of the Second World War – including the bomb hits of 1944, the soldiers who plundered the cellar’s stocks and the barrels taken up to build a pontoon bridge – have since become adventurous episodes in the Zwack story.
Glorious new beginnings are a recurring theme that the museum also brings to life, such as the rebuilding of the war-torn factory or Zwack Péter’s triumphant return from America in the late ’80s. It was then that the renowned Zwack heir bought back the factory once owned by his family and later nationalised.
In the early 2000s the building on Soroksári út was renovated, with particular attention paid to preserving its original features. The institution presenting the history of the family and of Unicum opened its doors in 2005 as the Zwack Museum and Visitor Centre, and has been known as the Unicum House since 2018.
As a stop on a hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus route, the venue became one of the mainstays of Budapest’s tourist circuit as early as 2014.
In 2015 the treasure trove of Unicum relics, the Unicum sample shop, was renovated, followed a year later by the event space, the Herb Bar (Füves Bár), which showcases the company’s expertise and heritage in medicinal herbs and spices.
Year after year, visitors can take part in exciting programmes where they can get to know the historic building, its industrial heritage and the family’s adventurous past. They can almost become part of this story through high-quality, moving-image and interactive experiences, which were developed further in 2020 and 2021 using digital memorabilia. In addition, tours of the old distillery room, restored on the basis of period photographs, and drinks tapped straight from the barrels in the ageing cellar can make a visit truly unforgettable.
Source: Turizmus.com