Glossary · Culture
Txotx
Basque. Kept in its own language here rather than translated into the nearest English word, because the nearest English word is usually cut on a different axis.
Also written chotx. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
The call — and the small wooden peg it names — announcing that a vat is open in a sagardotegi, at which guests come with their glasses to catch a thin jet of cider straight from the barrel.
- Subject
- Culture
- Language
- Basque
- Also written
- chotx
In more detail
The word is literally a peg. The Basque language academy defines txotx as an expressive form of zotz, a stick, and gives its specific sense as the peg that closes the hole of a barrel — the same object, under an unrelated language, that Asturian calls an espicha. In both languages the word for the peg became the word for the occasion. It is not a toast, and Basque has a separate word, topa, for that.
Cider is caught in a tilted glass from a narrow jet and only a little is taken at a time, so that none stands and goes flat. Whether the jet does anything to the cider beyond filling the glass is not established: unlike the Asturian regulating council, the Basque designation makes no physical claim about the pour and describes the txotx season socially, as a format for tasting and sharing the new ciders.
The word is pronounced roughly "choch". Txotxa, which English writing often uses, is the word with the Basque definite article attached.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Culture
Sagardotegi
A Basque cider house: a working cidery with a dining room, open from January to spring, where guests eat a set menu and drink from the *kupela*, the great vats, at the cry of *txotx*.
Culture
Sagardoa
The Basque word for cider. It is usually parsed as *sagar* (apple) and *ardo* (wine) — apple wine — and the drink is central to Basque food culture.
Serving
Escanciar
The Asturian pour: the bottle held high overhead and the glass low at the hip, so that a thin stream falls a metre or more and breaks on the rim of the tilted glass.
Serving
Culete
The measure poured at one time in an Asturian cider house and drunk straight down. The regulating council puts it at not less than 100 millilitres, and six to the bottle.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Euskal Sagardoa / Sidra Natural del País Vasco protected designation
Eusko Label / Basque Government · designation authority · registered as competent for this subject
NEIKER Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development
NEIKER · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24