The Brezovica Plum Brandy Distillery

As with most people Ceiriog Hughes had a childhood. He had a grandmamma and granddad, a mamma and da. His da hated his mamma and his grandmamma played cards with his granddad, his grandmamma trumping diamonds and spades, his granddad giving in to drink evenings and after Sunday Mass. He didn’t know the difference between hot things and cold things and never saw a sunrise that didn’t curse the world it shone down upon. He knew that things happened, all sorts of things, but didn’t understand why. He knew that dogs liked to sniff other dogs and that mice lived in nests under the stairs and that Sunday came before Monday and something’s were bigger than other things. These things he knew from experience and from seeing things more than once; everything else he had to take on faith and from what people told him was true and not so true. His great-granddad worked as a bung tamper for the Brezovica Plum Brandy distillery owned by Ljutomer J. Ljutomer. After 27 ½ years of tamping bungs his great-granddad’s hands were scalloped raw, his fingers curled like wood shavings.