People dressed in paczki gear drank paczki-flavored liquor and beer, ate perogies and kielbasa, and celebrated Polish heritage at paczki parties in Detroit on Saturday, Feb. 14.
The parties at Detroit City Distillery and Eastern Market Brewing Co. down the road were bumping Saturday morning and afternoon ahead of Fat Tuesday on Feb. 17 and the beginning of Lent on Wednesday, Feb. 18.
Detroit City Distillery owners J.P. Jerome and Mike Derksen said this is the distillery’s ninth year making Paczki Day Vodka.
“For the vodka, we get hundreds of dozens of paczkis every year from (New Palace Bakery) Hamtramck, and we break them up, put them in the still, let them sit for a day then distill it so it comes out clear, tastes like raspberry and doughnut paczki,” Jerome said. “It’s probably the low cal(orie) way of enjoying a paczki.”
Distiller Steve Orzechowski thought of it, and it has been an important tradition for the distillery ever since. This year is the biggest Paczki Day Vodka event they’ve hosted yet, the owners said.
Jenny Golota, 42, drove with friends to the Motor City Distillery party all the way from Lansing.
“My friends aren’t Polish but they’re Polish today because they knew how excited I was for this,” she said. “It’s celebrating Fat Tuesday. It’s happiness. It’s just part of my heritage that I love the most because I love desserts.”
Golota, who was wearing a beanie with a paczek on it she bought at the distillery a previous year, said she has been coming for the Paczki Day Vodka for years, but this was her first time staying for the party.
She said she loved the camaraderie of meeting other people with Polish heritage, eating a kielbasa sausage, watching an ice sculpting of the eagle on the Polish flag, and even taking a shot ski — a ski with holes for shot glasses that people stand in a line by each glass and take the shots at the same time.
Less than a half mile away, people lined up down the street to taste different paczki-flavored beers at Eastern Market Brewing Co.
Owner Dayne Bartscht said the Paczki Beer tradition started when the brewery opened in 2017, and it has grown ever since, with canned beers becoming available in 2021. The can orders have sold out every year, he said.
“What makes it special is that it allows us to celebrate Detroit culture while showcasing the creativity that defines our brand,” Bartscht said.
Elise Chom, 38, of Clinton Township, came with her cousin Russ Coearyn, 25, of Brighton, and his fiancee, Abigail Payment, 23, of Ovid, Michigan. They tried a flight of the cherry cheesecake blonde, raspberry jam blonde, lemon blueberry sour, orange creamsicle IPA and maple coffee stout paczki beers at Eastern Market Brewing Co. Their favorites were orange creamsicle and blueberry lemon sour. They said they’ve purchased the paczki.
Chom said the raspberry jam and cherry cheesecake flavors tasted most like a paczek, the singular of paczki. The coffee one, which she was not a fan of, tasted the least like a paczek, she said. They also liked some of last year’s beer flavors, they said, and before heading to the Brewing Co. for beer tried some of the new Polish-inspired bourbon from Detroit City Distillery.
“For me, as a good Polack, it (the event) is a testament to Detroit’s Polish history and continuing moving forward what makes Detroit Detroit,” Chom said.
Coearyn said though he is Irish, he enjoys celebrating Polish traditions, too.
“Celebrating tradition is pretty cool, regardless if you’re Polish or not,” Coearyn said. “We all like paczki.”
Contact Natalie Davies at ndavies@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michiganders celebrate Polish history in Detroit ahead of Fat Tuesday
Reporting by Natalie Davies, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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