The Christmas liver sausage season traditionally starts in October. It was officially opened on Tuesday (October 21): Lord Mayor Sibylle Keupen and Rolf Gerrards, Chairman of Aachen's Aixtra butchers, ceremoniously cut the Christmas liver sausage in the White Hall of Aachen Town Hall.

"Printen are available all year round in Aachen," says Keupen, "but the cutting of the Christmas liver sausage is a nice tradition in the town hall to ring in the Christmas season. But it is also a wonderful opportunity to thank the craft. The butchers use their culinary craftsmanship to produce a very special foodstuff that makes Aachen even more special. That's why it's only natural that we invite them here at the town hall and show our appreciation to the craft sector."

Liver sausage is also available at any time of year - but Christmas liver sausage is only available in the run-up to Christmas. The genuine "Öcher Chressmesleäverwooesch", as the die-hard Aacheners say, may only be produced by butchers from the Aachen city area in accordance with strict quality standards. This was decided by the European Commission in February 2016, when it awarded the Aachen Christmas liver sausage and the Öcher Puttes the seal of quality of a geographically protected product.

Not only a dash of cream, but also the addition of Christmas spice mixtures such as coriander, cardamom and aniseed, as well as the refinement with various nuts, cranberries and even honey have been giving this Aachen delicacy its special taste for more than 120 years. Sometimes it is even refined with Aachener Printen. However, the exact composition remains the secret of the individual butchers. Gerrards sees the cutting ceremony as an opportunity to put the spotlight on Aachen's craftsmanship, especially the butcher's trade: "The cutting of the Christmas liver sausage in the town hall brings the public closer to the importance of the craft in general. The Christmas liver sausage, the pink gold of Aachen, also enjoys great popularity beyond the region, which makes us very proud as Aixtra butchers. We also work very closely with the bakery trade, because the Christmas liver sausage works very well with baked goods. Have you ever tried Christmas liver sausage with Printen?" Gerrads recommends soft Printen to go with it.

But the focus was not only on cutting the sausage: a total of 24 kilograms of Aachen's Christmas liver sausage and the same amount of Öcher Puttes from the city's butchers' guilds were donated to social institutions. The Franziska-Schervier-Stube and the Café KonTAKT of the Alexianer-Wohnverbund received the vouchers for these Aachen delicacies.