Yeni Raki


20mm diameter- Mosaic gold in sterling silver
$165 USD

A confusion of names exists in the Eastern Mediterranean: the Greeks have ouzo and raki, the Turks have raki. Ouzo is a not terribly sweet anisette flavoured spirit, raki is distilled wine pomace (the organic leftovers from wine production) and is basically moonshine. Turkish raki, however, is essentially the same as Greek ouzo and bears no resemblance to Greek raki. Both Greek ouzo and Turkish raki are usually drunk over ice, mixed with water, and are meant to be served with mezedes or meze, which are small plates like the more familiar tapas. 
Delicious raki goodness

Kostas and I are pretty much "when in Rome" type travellers. With a few exceptions, we drink whe local tipple when we are on vacation. We drink the arrack in Sri Lanka, don't try to find wine in Thailand, and find that most countries produce at least one decent beer. Thus, raki became the beverage of choice on our travels. Nightly, we would scout out the best meze places and order our raki with 4 or more delightful Turkish dishes. So many of the dishes were under 30 lira (around 3 euro, $2.50USD or $4.50CAD at the time) that it was hard to not just keep ordering, and we were usually starving after walking 10 or more km during the day. The sheer deliciousness of the food also made ordering conservatively a difficult proposition. I love Greek food and happily consume it daily, but the Turkish mezes seemed to have more variety and depth of flavour, while still having that Mediterranean vibe. Shockingly, my Greek man was the first to assert this claim! 

Our last night...sigh...

This was our most ridiculous over order: the prices were not indicative of dish size at all

Between back to back trips to Italy and Turkey, I ate extremely well for the better part of 3 weeks. I'm getting hungry now!



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