Badagi

Concentrated grape must

Badagi (pekmez) is a natural syrup of grape must boiled down to a molasses-like thickness. It is a sugar-free concentrated sweetener, long used both on its own and as the base for pelamushi, tatara and churchkhela.

Badagi is made during the rtveli by slowly reducing fresh grape juice; a special clarifying earth (gaja) is sometimes added. It keeps for a long time and replaces sugar in desserts and drinks.

Similar reduced musts exist across the Mediterranean and Caucasus (petimezi, pekmez), but in Georgia badagi is above all the raw material for the great grape sweets.