Georgos, a 48-year-old fisherman from Volos, Greece, drinks tsipouro (a high-alcohol grape brandy) daily from age 13 and works through the night fishing before returning in the morning. The author visits Volos to experience its famous tsipourádiko culture centered around tsipouro and seafood. Tsipouro is distilled from grape pomace and commonly consumed in Volos' many brandy bars, along with small plates of seafood. The author samples tsipouro and food at various bars, finding the locals follow a tradition of stopping for drinks after work instead of coffee.

1. The Stories Volos distilled 93
PHOTOGRAPHS RIVER THOMPSON
…IN VOLOS, OUR NEW DESTINATION IN GREECE, WHERE THERE ARE UP TO
600 TSIPOURÁDIKA, OR BRANDY BARS. ANASTASIA MIARI FINDS OUT HOW
MANY IT’S POSSIBLE TO VISIT IN ONE WEEKEND
Take a tsip…

2. “I’ve drunk
tsipouro
pretty much
every day
since the age
of 13,” says
Georgos,
a fisherman in the Greek town of Volos, who
looks surprisingly fresh and far from the craggy
fisherman you might imagine, given his 48
years and crack-of-dawn starts. “I was drinking
tsipouro until about midnight. I went to sleep for
a couple of hours, then I woke at 2am and went
out to sea and back before returning to my boat
this morning,” he tells me as I stare in disbelief.
I’m here for full immersion in the town’s famous
tsipourádiko culture, but in all honesty, I have a
little anxiety about even dipping my toe in.
“I
ts
pr
ev
p
si
of
G
a fisher
looks s
fisherm
years a
tsipour
a coup
out to s
this mo
I’m her
tsipour
little an

3. The Stories Volos distilled 95
FISHY BUSINESS
From left: catch of the
day; Volos harbour at
dawn; Georgos the
fisherman
>
Made from the pomace of grapes left over
from wine production, tsipouro contains up
to 45% alcohol and originates in the northern
regions of Greece. In the 14th century, the
legendary monks of Mount Athos, in Macedonia,
set about making the most out of the whole
grape, distilling tsipouro for the first time. Now,
it’s served up in suspiciously small bottles with
the option to drink pure (a sharp kick not for
the faint of heart) or anise avoured. Many
Greeks add water or ice, transforming the
seemingly innocent clear beverage into a
mysterious glass-trapped cloud.
Tsipouro is big business in the essaly
region of Greece, roughly midway between
Athens and essaloniki on the mainland, and
especially in Volos. Forget post-work beers,
tsipouro is the order of every day and I’m here

4. The Stories Volos distilled 97
to find out why. A coastal city with the snow-
tipped backdrop of Mount Pelion, Volos serves
up tsipouro with a side of seafood meze.
I arrive in town at night, hungry and eager to
get on with my tsipouro mission. According to
the tourist board, there could be anything up to
600 tsipourádika in the city, all solely dedicated
to tsipouro and meze, so I’m surprised to hear
that most of the places on my ‘must hit’ list shut
up shop at 5pm.
I head to MeZen – hotly tipped as the best
of the new tsipourádika in Volos’s town centre
– and wait in a quiet side street with the local
cats and my travel buds to be seated. It’s now
10pm, but the place is buzzing. People spill
out onto tables in the street, adding ice to tiny
glasses of what looks at first glance like water,
but turns out to be our old friend tsipouro.
Calamari, grilled sardines, fried anchovies – all
my favourite fishy dishes – oat past me and
I’m relieved 45 minutes later when we’re finally
seated, ready to tuck in.
“A coastal city,
Volos serves up
tsipouro with a side
of seafood meze”
SEE FOOD
Clockwise from top:
it’s roughly three meze
per glass of tsipouro;
Yiannis Gontelakis in his
restaurant; tables on
Agria harbour
>

5. “Will the guys drink?” asks our waiter in
Greek, as we squeeze onto a tiny central table.
I respond with an a rmative “Nai” (yes). He
brings out a 1L bottle of tsipouro, half fills our
glasses and sets it on the table. We look at each
other, not quite sure what to do, and I regret
having been so set on my response. e first glass
(anise avoured and cloudy with ice) goes down
slowly. en the meze arrives, three plates at a
time. Creamy taramasalata, salted mackerel and
sardines, followed by roasted peppers, grilled
squid and shallow-fried whitebait. Ten plates are
sent out in total and the tsipouro begins to make
sense amid this salty plate-stacked table. By 1am,
we’ve seen off the bottle.
Walking back along the harbourside is
when we first meet Georgos the fisherman.
He’s heading out to sea and invites me to come
back when the catch comes in. Bleary eyed, but
unexpectedly free of a headache, I return at
6.30am to find the tsipourádiko proprietors of
Volos strolling the harbour, pausing by each fish-
packed vessel to carefully curate the day’s meze.
“Make sure you start early,” says Georgia,
an elderly vendor and fish-market veteran
when I tell her I’m on a mission to sample Volos’s
best tsipourádika spots. In Volos, lunch can
begin as early as 11am and the tsipourádiko was
traditionally a place for labourers to stop off for
a drink after work. Strolling through the city
centre, I can see this ritual is still very much alive
and applies to everyone these days.
In Kavouras, a glass-fronted tsipourádiko
tucked into an inconspicuous side street, locals
cram around meze-packed tables, each with its >
98 The Stories Volos distilled

6. “Most people finish
work at midday and head
out for a drink”

7. own collection of tiny glass bottles at varying
degrees of emptiness. I meet Alexandros, who’s
brought his Athenian friends here to celebrate
his 32nd birthday. “In Volos, we don’t go out
to have a drink in a bar or go for a coffee in the
afternoon like other Greeks,” he says, when I
comment on how heaving the place is midweek.
“Mostpeoplefinishworkatmiddayandhead
outforatsipouro,”addsNatasa.“It’saverylocal
traditionandit’seconomicallygood–youbuya
drinkandyougetadishwithit.”Sheexplainsthis
Greektraditioninitsmostauthenticform.
On my tsipourádiko crawl, I spend a languid
afternoon getting progressively full as opposed
to increasingly drunk. at’s the secret to a great
tsipouro experience. In Volos, Greek hospitality
is distilled as strongly as its tsipouro. Most of
the old-school tsipourádika in town bring over
a round of meze plates per glass. If you’re in a
group of five, like we are today, you can pay for
just one glass of tsipouro and head home fed
and watered. Perhaps this is why business is
booming for Volos’s tsipourádika.
LET’S DO LUNCH
Clockwise from left: Nikos
& Yiannis’s tsipourádiko
in Volos; a Makrinitsa
inhabitant; long-time
Volos fish-market vendor
Georgia
>
The Stories Volos distilled 101

8. “Greek legend has
it that Jason set sail
from Volos’s crystal
clear waters”
The Stories Volos distilled 103
On the seafront, I meet pensioner Filipa, who
is keen to tell me how best to take my tsipouro
(by this point, I know I like it watered down
and anise avoured). “Some of the villagers in
the mountains put onion or bread in it when it’s
fermenting, to add more avour,” he tells me,
before insisting we visit nearby Makrinitsa, a
village up Mount Pelion, before leaving Volos.
e next day, we do just that, winding far
above Volos through pine trees and wild ower
meadows polka-dotted with poppies. e
terracotta tiled roofs of houses switch to slate
and the architecture takes on a more Alpine
feel as the air gets cooler the further up we
drive. Dripping wisteria, the stone houses of
Makrinitsa, Portaria and Palia Chania villages
offer a version of Greece not so synonymous
ALYKES BEACH
For a beach that’s
pretty much on the
doorstep of Volos’s
tsipourádika area,
head to sandy Alykes Beach just
a 10-minute drive south. Here you
can watch fishermen tootle back
into Volos at dawn, loaded with
their catch, or enjoy a long lunch
Volos style at a coastal taverna.
PLAKA
Drive on the coast
road towards
Agria for about 10
minutes to reach
Plaka – not so much a beach as a
rocky outcrop that juts into deep,
turquoise water. The swimming
club tends the lush slope, packed
with cacti and beach plants, for
beautiful views to sea and inland.
DAMOUCHARI
Wild feeling
and indisputably
serene,
Damouchari
Beach is on the other side of
Mount Pelion. The Jurassic
coastline dense with vegetation
meets a small pebble cove and
caves line its edges. It feels like
an untouched hideaway.
Brandy on the beach? These are Volos’s best…
>

9. 104 The Stories Volos distilled
DESTINATION VOLOS
Stay seven nights B&B at four-star Volos Palace,
departing London Gatwick on 18 July, from
£429pp*. easyJet.com/holidays
easyJetfliestoVolosfromGatwickfrom17June
“Modern Volos has a combination
of mountain and coast, and a unique
drinking culture”
with sandy beaches and seafront tavernas. Just
a half-hour from Volos’s harbour and beaches
is the ski resort of Agriolefkes and, as we climb
higher up Pelion, we pass snow.
In summer, a train connects Volos to the
24 villages nestled into Pelion’s mountainside,
a fun option if you’re heading up here post-
tsipouro. Hiking paths also snake through the
villages for rare days of abstinence and cooler
weather. After my final dose of tsipouro and
hearty meze however, I’m more into a laze on the
beach. We head to the other side of the peak, a
20-minute drive from the snowcapped top, to
Damouchari Beach, a pretty, pebble-lined cove
famous for its appearance in the musical movie
Mamma Mia!
Legend has it that Jason set sail from Volos’s
crystal clear waters with the Argonauts in search
of the Golden Fleece. If he’d been witness to
modern Volos, with its combination of mountain
and coast, comprising skiing, sailing, kitesurfing
and hiking in one, and its unique tsipourádiko
culture, I wonder if he would have been quite so
keen to rush off.
A CLEAR WINNER
Damouchari Beach was
the location of one of
Mamma Mia!’s biggest
dance scenes, but retains
an off-the-radar vibe
*HOLIDAYSAVAILABLEONALLLANGUAGEWEBSITES.SEEP177FORT&CS