If you feel that slivovice and fruit spirits are something boring and old school at all, at least until you drink the first two, the Museum of Slivovice Prague on the corner of Klárov and Mánes Bridge will show you a new world. The child of Pavel Dvořáček, the majority owner of the Vizovice liqueur R. Jelínek, who cost 12 years of life and about 250 million crowns, woke up this year and is catching his breath after the coronavirus crisis.

It is not only about the production of fruit spirits, but also a reminder of the wild Czech history of the 20th century and the fates of the original Jewish liqueur owners, including Rudolf Jelínek. He accompanies the exhibition as a hologram, sometimes the Moravian sun burns at the visitors, the wind blows and one morning they can wake up like a plum just shaken from a tree in virtual reality glasses. And then heading somewhere other than to the Vizovice liqueur.

“We went through various museums around the world and tried to come up with a maximally compact, interesting exhibition that will engulf visitors with all their senses. For example, Irish whiskey museums are certainly larger, but ours is the most modern, ”says Pavel Dvořáček, a former financier who fully connected fate with R. Jelínek more than 20 years ago.

Today, it oversees the group, which last year earned about 750 million crowns without tax and VAT, regularly generates EBITDA of about 15 percent, has orchards not only in Vizovice but also in Chile and Bulgaria, and boasts the name of the largest producer of fruit spirits in the world. It is still strong in terms of export on the American market, where it has gained a place with kosher distillates before the Second World War, thanks to Rudolf Jelínek.

The museum was established in the U Bílé botky house from the beginning of the 17th century, which has been owned and also slightly improved by the actress Slávka Budínová since the 1960s. After her death in 2002, inheritance disputes broke out and Rudolf Jelínek could not buy the house until nine years later. The next long years were the purchase of a small plot of land in the middle of the area, which belonged to the whole of Prague 1, and the whole construction was very technically demanding, because it extends six meters below the Vltava.

“Last year we had to deal with water leaks, the whole reinforced concrete tub forming the foundations is caught up to the rocks of the former island on which we actually stand,” explains Pavel Dvořáček passionately, according to whom it was the largest single investment in its history. The museum is followed by a shop and bar with modern drinks based on fruit spirits and “Wallachian tapas”, ie variously arranged canapés on homemade bread, and the head of R. Jelínek also bets a lot on corporate events, which have space in the underground hall for about 70 people.

The original plans, of course, envisage that tourists will predominate among the visitors, which is not yet the case due to the coronavirus, and Pavel Dvořáček does not want to calculate the return on the project.

“But it’s another good image for our brand. After all, not too many Americans will come to Vizovice. And operationally, we are already in the black, “adds the man who had something built as a service apartment in the attic. Its bathtub overlooks Prague Castle and it is possible that it will eventually be available for short-term rent.