A family homestead, a new law and a private distillery.

Žuta Osa — Serbian for “Yellow Wasp” — is a plum rakija, or šljivovica, made by Flores, a family company in Divostin, about six kilometres from the city of Kragujevac in central Serbia. The Belgrade business site Biznis.rs reported in November 2023 that Flores was founded in 1985, and the state news agency Tanjug, in a report carried by B92 in January 2012, gave the same year.

Its founder was the agricultural engineer Radiša Pljakić. English Wikipedia says he had helped establish Miloduh, a maker of macerated brandies, in 1970, left it in 1979 to work in public agricultural institutions, and then started Flores on his family homestead in Divostin when new legislation allowed private business; its infobox dates the company’s current legal form to 1992. Biznis.rs noted in 2023 that Serbia’s rakija market had once been dominated by state-owned firms such as Takovo, Miloduh and Rubin, before the number of registered producers grew into the hundreds. The company presents itself as a pioneer: Tanjug quoted it in 2012 as saying Flores was the first private company in Yugoslavia, formed as soon as the law made that possible, and in 2023 Miomir Pljakić told Biznis.rs that it had been the first private distillery in the Yugoslavia of the day. The same 2012 report said Flores was built on the foundations of a family business dating from 1803 that processed fruit and made spirits and wine until it was nationalised in 1952 — a history attributed to the company.

The founder’s son, Miomir Pljakić, now runs the firm. Biznis.rs described him in 2023 as having inherited the company from his father, and noted that Flores had by then operated under four different states, starting with socialist Yugoslavia.

A short list of rakijas, made the same way for decades.

The Flores range is deliberately narrow. Biznis.rs reported in 2023 that it consists of plum rakijas — Žuta Osa and Bela Osa (“White Wasp”) — plus one grape rakija and one herbal rakija, and quoted Miomir Pljakić as saying the company had kept essentially the same production programme for almost forty years. The 2012 Tanjug report listed Srpska Loza, made from grapes grown in Serbian vineyards, and Žuta Lincura, made from fruit, plum brandy and herb flowers and named by Tanjug as the main product of that line, alongside the two plum brands; English Wikipedia describes the Lincura as gentian macerated in slivovitz.

Tanjug’s 2012 report described Žuta Osa as a premium plum brandy prepared and aged according to traditional recipes. Balkan Insight reported in June 2011 that it is a natural plum brandy at 45 per cent alcohol. English Wikipedia, citing a 2009 report in the Belgrade daily Press, adds a longer-aged Žuta Osa Superior, matured for eight years in oak barrels.

Production is split between two sites. According to the 2012 Tanjug report, Flores processes, bottles and checks its rakija in a factory in Divostin with its own authorised quality-control laboratory, while the spirit matures in oak barrels in the nearby village of Kamenica; the plums come from individual growers’ orchards across Serbia. Biznis.rs reported in 2023 that the company had been importing its glass bottles from the Czech Republic for about fifteen years.

Plum brandy as a national craft.

The seven brands in this group are all names from the fruit-spirit and liqueur trade of the Balkans and Central Europe: Maraska, Badel 1862, Jelínek, Žuta Osa, Stara Sokolova, Agárdi and Rubin. Between them they come from Croatia, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Hungary, and they sit at very different points in the trade, from long-established houses, some of them privatised after years of state ownership, to producers built around a single distillery.

In this part of Europe a spirit’s identity is often carried as much by a word as by a logo — rakija, šljivovica, slivovice, pálinka, maraschino or vinjak — and the same style can be made by many producers. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, where the fruit is grown and where the spirit is actually distilled, aged and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirits are made and how its labels and bottles have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A name that travels with the diaspora.

Žuta Osa’s reach owes much to Serbians abroad. Biznis.rs called it a recognisable brand in Serbia and even more so in the diaspora, in Europe, Australia and America, and the 2012 Tanjug report put exports to Australia, the United States and the European Union alongside sales in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Slovenia. Miomir Pljakić told Biznis.rs that demand from Western Europe and the diaspora rose during the pandemic, when travel routes closed and fewer people could carry rakija home themselves to countries such as Germany, Austria and France — the opposite of what he had expected.

The brand has also been a public voice for small producers. In June 2011 Balkan Insight reported that Flores had complained of a “cold shoulder” from Serbia’s agriculture ministry when it sought export support: Žuta Osa did not have legal protection as a spirit with a specific geographical indication, which under the ministry’s rules excluded it from export subsidies. Miomir Pljakić said state support for the firm had fallen to zero that year.

Continuity is part of the story the company tells about itself. Biznis.rs reported in 2023 that most Flores workers had thirty or more years of service and none fewer than fifteen, and Miomir Pljakić credited the company’s survival through four states to quality and respect for the customer. The 2012 Tanjug report likewise stressed the authorised laboratory and the oak-barrel cellar at Kamenica rather than new products.

For a design guide, Žuta Osa shows how a vivid, memorable name can carry a small family rakija from a village near Kragujevac to diaspora shelves on three continents. Compare Rudolf Jelínek, the Moravian slivovitz distillery in Vizovice, and Knjaz Miloš, the Serbian mineral water from Aranđelovac. For this guide we use wasp yellow, wasp black and brown glass with a heavy sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Žuta Osa’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.