To me all sorts of anis, raki, arak and ouzo are equally tasteless. I don´t believe you can produce noble drinks from potato, sugar reed, anis or barley. Somehow however, Turkish people like raki and look down on other anis drinks. To me, there is not much difference at all.

In Lebanon arak has been considered before the industrial revolution as the noble drink and wine the popular one.

Indeed, the Lebanese masses could not afford the copper still to distill arak while wine making did not require heavy investments. The wealthy Lebanese who owned a still produced refined arak for their families and friends according to secretly kept recipes and then the still was lent to their subjects as a sign of generosity.

In Lebanon, before the brandmania, owning a large arak still was a sign of success and sophistication (source: http://www.massaya.com/arak.aspx)

what in the world is arak? You know arak in arabic means sweat ,right?

 Arak is a Lebanese  aniseed-tasting liquor ; It has has many distilled-from-grapes cousins around the Mediterranean (Raki, sambuca, ouzo, pastis, etc etc).

The word arak also describes sweat in arabic, a parallel often drawn with the shimmering droplets that coagulate in the delivery tubes prior to the finished 53% proof product dripping out of the still.

I think this thread should be named "let´s be mediterranean for a week" instead of greek now that we are a bit off subject

ah ah sa7 5alas 3ereftoh! i just didnt know that thast what it was called!

I know about absinthe and anis addiction in France and Spain from the books of Ernest Hemingway. It seems all around the Mediterranean, there is a certain type of anis drink.

One grape distillate which I find superior in taste to others is grappa. It tastes and smells like raisins.

The problem is, grappa is not sold here or maybe I am not aware of a place where it is sold. Just a glass of it after a meal feels very nice.

Absinthe is in a different league!!!  It had included "wormwood" which was a hallucinate.  It is said that without absinthe being in Paris during such a creative time, we would never have had the impressionist movement, as most artists and writers were completely addicted to it!!!!  It was to the early part of the century, what LSD was to the 1960s.

It was banned for many years, but has since be re-launched without the addictive drug (wormwood)

You are very very right on that one!  I have tried it and it numbs your mouth!  It is a killer at 90% proof.  If you ever watch Moulin Rouge there is a poster somewhere in the back ground advertising it.  Lethal stuff!!! and never again.................

I think the real absinthe is even forbidden in the Netherlands, because it is too dangerous. One sip too much and..................

I never knew it was forbidden until last summer when I went to buy it at tax free for Kadir, but they told me you could only get the ´weaker´ versions.

I have also never seen grappa in Turkey either, even Italian restaurants generally dont have it as far as Ive noticed. I really love that too, but I can´t drink the ones that have more than 50% alcohol. I think grappa goes to as about 60 or maybe even 70. It has a distinct and lovely taste though and it is great in espresso as well.

Surprized. I always thought the Netherlands is a place where alcohol and narcotics addictions are considered as part of personal freedoms. Does it make sense to allow weed and curb absinthe

Having said that when I used to smoke, I would occasionally roll a Drum or Samson can´t remember which one tasted better.

I believe I know almost all the curse phrases in Dutch, courtesy of a nasty friend who was raised in Holland.

 It is not banned any more, the brewing? of it has changed as theAenigma "fountain of all knowledge" posted above