Clear spirit distilled from grape pomace left after the wine press, usually around forty percent, drunk cold and neat. In Crete it arrives free at the end of a meal, with a plate of fruit or a spoon sweet.
Tsikoudia is what Cretans call the pomace spirit the rest of Greece knows as tsipouro. It is distilled in autumn, when the rakokazana, the village stills, fire up between October and December and turn the pressed grape skins into spirit. The distilling becomes a party in its own right, with roast meat, chestnuts and lyra music around the copper still. Unlike ouzo it takes no anise, which is why it tastes of grape rather than liquorice. Refusing the free glass at the end of a Heraklion meal is possible but nobody will understand why you are doing it.
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