"Our trademark was created in 1863 and was named Apalarina, after the nickname given to my great grandfather. Back in the day, our shop used to work not only as a distillery but as a café as well. The customers were few and each one of them used to have their own table. The tourists who visited the café immediately left their tables when the regulars came in. Among the regulars there were fishermen and huntsmen, who used to tell tall tales in order to pass the time". 

No preservatives

Leonidas Serafeim from Chios Island is not only a good distiller but also a charismatic speaker. "The shop used to serve mastic drink* of 39 degrees, with zero preservatives and no added sugar. Today, it is made in the exact same way. It is the purest alcoholic drink in the world. The customers used to eat whitebait and beans, cooked only with water and oil, as meze**. They used to eat "libinari" as well, a yellow fruit like chickpea that tasted like almond crumb. It was sweet, so they used to dip it in the sea to make it nice and salty. Some of them used to bring fresh fava beans with them, which they used to break open on the table and eat sprinkled with salt".

Nowadays, the small music taverns (koutoukia) have almost vanished in Chios. In the 'good old days', when the Serafeim brothers' shop was busy and chairs weren't enough to seat everyone, some clients used to stand, drinking and placing their glasses on the "teziaki" (marble bench). The same people visited this place for fifty years, always on their own, without their wives, until they got old and died. The shop had all in all five tables and yet the day that these tables were empty actually came. In the end, the tavern closed and only the distillery was left.

The same people visited the shop for fifty years, always on their own, without their wives, until they died of old age. Even though the tavern only had five tables, the day when they were all empty eventually came. In the end, the tavern closed and only the distillery was left.

In joy and sorrow

In Chios, almost everything can be turned into a drink, from lemons and rose petals, to bergamots and tangerines.  They even make the "soumada" (orgeat syrup) from the almond's extract, a drink that accompanies the locals in joy and sorrow. They serve it at weddings and baptisms, but also when an unwed person dies.

The people in Chios don't like to be criticriticized about their drinks, which they have patiently worked to make popular not only amongst the Greeks but the Turks as well.

The most famous, mostly amongst women, is the mastic liqueur because it contains little sugar and it has only 22 degrees of alcohol.

Women from both sides of the Aegean Sea, regardless if they are wearing a Greek traditional headscarf or a Turkish one, enjoy the drink whenever they have the opportunity. 

*A type of Greek liqueur with mastic
** Small dishes served to accompany alcoholic drinks as a course or as appetizers before the main dish in Greece

TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com

MORE PHOTOS

Old distillery in Chios.

Orgeat's bottling in the drinks and sweets' industry named Koraki-Marinou.

The first drink which was bottled in 1947 by the Tetteris distillery.

Chios bathed in the warm colours of the dawn.

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