Pekmez is a traditional Turkish food made by using different fruits, obtained after condensing juices.

It is most often made from grapes, but there are local forms of pekmez made from other materials including mulberries, plums, apples, pears, sugar beets, watermelon, sorghum and pomegranates. During recent years carob has also been used to make pekmez. In Southern Anatolia especially, the boiled ripe berries of a species of juniper known locally as andiz (Juniperus drupacea) yield sweet syrup known as andiz pekmezi. There is also another kind of Pekmez, made from carob, called keçiboynuzu pekmezi or harnup pekmezi in Turkish language. One of the most difficult to find is the tahini pekmez, made from sesame beans.



The highest quality of these is made in the regions of Zile, Kırşehir, Kastamonu, Sivrihisar, Balıkesir, Afyon, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep and Hatay.



Fruits reserved for production are squeezed by mortar or presser to produce grape juice. The juice is cooked at 50-60° Celsius for 10-15 minutes. A special kind of soil, used to purify the juice from particles, should be added to the juice while it is being cooked. Soil is also useful for balancing the taste. The Ministry of Agriculture in Turkey advises producers to use 1-5 kilograms of soil for 100 kilograms of grape juice.



Grape juice is stored in containers for 4-5 hours to ensure that all particles in the juice sink to the bottom. The limpid part of the juice is collected from the container and transferred to boilers for further heating. This boiling process gives pekmez its dark color and high viscosity. Pekmez has a dark color because of the caramelized sugar in the boiled grape juice. The juice loses its fluidity due to water loss by evaporation. Additionally, pekmez produces a special smell when prepared in cooking.



Before sugar became available, Turkish sweets were sweetened with pekmez or honey. For this reason, pekmez has been of the most important sweet foodstuffs in our traditional diet and tastes for millennia. Pekmez, which the Turks developed in order to preserve grape juice, both converted grapes and must, which easily spoiled, into a long-lasting form, and helped meet the need for sugar and sweetener.



Pekmez is a healthful food due to its nutritional content and is used as a main source of energy based on its chemical composition. The carbohydrates in pekmez are generally in the form of natural sugars like glucose and fructose, which is nutritionally important for babies, children, sportsmen, and active workers.