[1] The word derives from the Slavic verb *paliti (Czech: pálit, Slovak: páliť) 'to burn; to distill'.
Very distinctive among pálenkas are the ones distilled from fermented forest berries, including raspberries, blueberries, wild black thorn (planá trnka) and cranberries.
Drienkovica (a spirit distilled from Cornelian cherries (Cornus mas) was popularized by the former Slovak president Rudolf Schuster.
The latter was quite popular prior to the First World War, and features prominently in the works of Jaroslav Hašek, Petr Bezruč and Sigmund Freud.
[3] It was the title of a 2014 award-winning novel by Matěj Hořava, about a Czech-speaking minority community in a village in Romania in Banat.