PIROT, Serbia — During long winter months, a traditionally crafted spicy sausage in the town of Pirot in southeastern Serbia is said to lift both a person’s energy and spirits.

The “ironed sausage” — or “peglana kobasica” in Serbian — is a rich mixture of selected meats loaded with seasoning and dried naturally. The name of the sausage is derived from a unique bottle-flattening technique that makes it thin and gives it a horseshoe shape.

And though it has been part of Pirot’s tradition through generations, the delicacy praised for high-quality meat and its sustainable, organic manufacturing has gained fame beyond this sleepy town near Serbia’s border with Bulgaria.

In 2022, Pirot’s ironed sausage was awarded a certificate from the state food safety authorities for regional excellence and origin — a process that requires producers to follow a set of regulations in order to get the official stamp.

“It is a supreme product,” Marjan Savic, who heads an association of ironed sausage producers, told The Associated Press. “Our sausage is one of the best, if not the best.”

Pirot’s sausage-making tradition dates back at least a century, or perhaps even to the Ottoman era, which ended in the Balkans in 1913.

In old times, sausage makers used meat from older animals to stuff the sausages and then dry them, sometimes hanging them on broomsticks in their sheds or attics.

These days, there are around 35-40 certified producers in the area. They use locally bred beef and goat meat, adding garlic, hot pepper and spices harvested from the scenic Stara Planina mountain nearby.

Making an ironed sausage is “hard labor,” Savic said. First, the meat must be fully cleared of all fat and connecting tissue, “which is probably the hardest part of the job,” he explained.

The sausages are then dried and flattened daily by hand, for full taste and shape. The process ends in time for a sausage fair that takes place in Pirot every January, attracting thousands of visitors, including many from neighboring Bulgaria.

But despite growing demand, the sausage-making businesses are threatened by dwindling goat herds in the area, and generally warmer and more humid winters in recent years that experts partly link to climate change.

Misa Rajic learned the sausage-making craft from his grandfather and remembers making ironed sausages every winter while growing up. He now owns a small manufacturing unit in his home on the outskirts of Pirot.

“It takes about a month to get a dry, dehydrated product that is ready for consumption,” Rajic said, showing visitors how sausages are pressed with a glass bottle from the middle outward.

The process, he added, “helps further mix the meat inside the sausage and it helps with the drying because it extracts the moisture.”

A well-dried sausage has a dark color with the greyish surface of the beef intestines’ casing, which is peeled off before serving. Locals in Pirot consume the sausage much like a digestif — after a full meal, including the desert. They cut it into leaf-thin slices and chew slowly with red wine to enjoy the taste.

“We recommend red wines that are a bit robust to match the poignant aroma,” Savic said. “It’s not so good with white wine.”

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Associated Press writer Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.