I'm here in Mykonos with Alejandros Gkikopoulos who's a mixologist here in Greece
and i'm taking this opportunity we happen to be in a fancy spirit store in Mykonos but we're
going to talk about many different spirits and alcohol and cocktails related themes
Alejandros so nice to be with you here nice to meet you cool so the first thing
welcome so the first thing i wanted to ask you about was before i came to the class
i was in Crete and in Crete everywhere raki raki raki everybody offering it it's coming
to the table before the meal new people friends socializing everywhere is raki and i wanted to
many of our readers are spending time in Crete i thought it would be nice to learn more about raki
what it is how it's made and how it is a part of Greek culture can you tell me a little bit
about raki it's a very common situation to find the raki in Crete. it's a spirit with a for
for grapes or from fruits all from the mix of the of the two of them. we don't have a law behind
this type of spirit but we will see in the near future to to have a really good law behind of this
uh but it's very easy in common to see it when you go to a restaurant when you go to a bar when
you go to a hotel to stay someone from the personnel or the waiter came to you with
a bottle of raki see it saying and the same if you go to a farm or someone's house right
everywhere everywhere raki in Crete it's everywhere right it's very common and in the
the other place in Greece you can find it with the name tsipouro. Tsipouro has a law behind
but not for raki yet okay you can fight bottle i think i don't i don't remember exactly how many
distilleries by law with reiki exist in Crete but they a lot of rakis you can find in Crete, it's a
a home product a home product a home brew. right and so it's very common that families
are own right of course every family has the best raki in Crete. nice and then in addition to raki
many people are adding honey or herbs or other things can you tell me about that we can find a
some places and during the night that the people around they drink rakomelo like it's a
a cocktail a warm cocktail with a raki as a base and with cinnamon infused inside
and the other herbs like and other herbs and of course honey inside they warm it and they just
serve you and you drink it by shot nice it's very sweet it's very delicate quite delicate and uh
it's a lot of spices inside and especially nice now is raki specific to Crete largely
i know that you can find it in other places but really raki is a cr its home is in Crete?
home here in Greece of course but you can find in tessaly as the name tsipouro, you can find it
raki starts from the arabic word arak and that's a they gave it to us what does that word mean a
street if i maybe write sweat yes interesting and here in Mykonos is there a lot of raki drinking no
what about in Athens uh in nothing you can find tsipouro and especially in Plaka in this type of
area in the center of Athens you can find a lot of restaurants with traditional food of course
or as you like it you can drink eat the salad and you can drink a bottle of tsipouro, it's very
unique to drink bottled
drinks and not homemade and especially with alcohol inside it's very dangerous
you know got it so there it is about raki we were going to talk about many other things but i knew
that many of our readers and people who are using our website are often visiting Crete and it's very
common for them to come in contact with creations who are welcoming them into their home or their
shop or to their farm and to offer raki so thank you for giving a little bit of understanding
and context it's a it's a difficult but it's easy situation everywhere when you go to Crete
everyone drinks raki right from workers throughout the day to families whoever it may be
and it's a wonderful delicious drink to enjoy together yes of course great Alejandros here in
Mykonos we're going to talk about a bunch of other spirits related stuff thank you so much thank you
and remember we're Santorini Dave we do all kinds of Greek culture as well as hotel and restaurant
reviews and trip planning guides here in Greece so you'll make sure to check those out we've got lots
more great content thank you Alejandros thank you if you enjoyed this video please like and
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