What are some common and popular Greek beverages?
By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2017-01-01 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek
- Coffee:
- Turkish coffee (renamed Greek coffee) for the older generation
- Frappé coffee for the younger generation
- Instant coffee (“Nes”) as a lighter, more western option
- Variants such as Vienna Coffee for a night out
- Nursed for hours at a café
- First beverage at home in the morning
- Herbal teas
- Sage, Camomile, Nettle
- Drunk when you’re ill, as a restorative
- Stereotypically associated with old people; hence Zambetas’ great lyric, Οι νέοι θέλουν έρωτα, κι οι γέροι χαμομήλι, “The young need love; the old need camomile”
- Tea
- That thing that English people drink
- Traditionally treated as a counterpart of herbal teas: a health drink, rather than a social drink
- Wine
- The traditional drink of feasting and celebration; can be seen at the dining table
- Not watered since Byzantium
- But already resinated since Byzantium (see below)
- Traditionally, there’s some homebrew lurking around in the village; buying a decent commercial vintage is a nouveau things
- There are fine venerable distinctive grapes in Greece—Category:Grape varieties of Greece – Wikipedia is a long list. But traditionally, people drink whatever’s handy locally. In my experience, it’s on the sour and unsubtle side.
- Retsina
- Resinated as a preservative
- A tart taste that makes no sense outside Greece, but a lot of sense with lamb chops with oregano
- Default drink of the taverna
- Endearingly served in tin pitchers
- Beer
- Introduced with the Bavarians in the 1830s. The venerable and recently revived brand Fix was originally Fuchs.
- In my youth, there were just two brands: Amstel and Heineken (locally called “Green”), with an occasional showing of Löwenbräu. There’s a lot more now, including local brews (and the beginnings of microbrews).
- Traditionally the secondary, lighter alternative to wine; more common (I think) when going out than in feasts at home.
- Raki/Tsikoudia/Tsipouro
- Traditional hard drink
- Drunk straight in shot glasses
- If you’ve had grappa, you’ve had raki. It’s a Pomace brandy.
- Drunk with mezze (tapas)
- Much more a drink of manly men celebrating each other’s manliness than a feast drink
- Ouzo
- Variant of raki
- Drunk straight in shot glasses, or watered down in tumblers
- Actually corresponds to Turkish rakı, with the whole aniseed flavour and the turning white with water
- Drunk in ouzeries (tapas joints), and I assume by manly men celebrating each other’s manliness
- Whisky
- The urban and urbane counterpart to raki
- The choice of the Greek going to a Western-style bar
- The choice of the Greek showing off their affluence
- Coke
- Default soft drink, like it is eveywhere
- Sprite
- Second default soft drink, like it is eveywhere
- Gazoza
- Traditional equivalent to Sprite, though a bit more lemony
- Fell out of favour in the last few decades
- Visinada
- Sour cherry juice (or cordial, and sometimes carbonated)
- Byral
- A local imitation of Coke
- Big in the 60s, before Coke was launched locally
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