Greek Cocktails Made With Cretan Ingredients Impress Exhibition Visitors

Photo © Municipality of Rethymno

Photo © Municipality of Rethymno

Top Greek bartenders from Athens and Crete recently got together in Rethymno at the 3rd Cretan Diet Festival and introduced a series of new cocktail recipes based on Cretan products.

The 3rd Cretan Diet Festival is taking place at the Municipal Garden in Rethymno and will run until 5 July.

The aim of the “Cocktail like Crete” event was to introduce new creations – made with ingredients grown on the island – to Greeks and foreign visitors.

Photo © Municipality of Rethymno

Guest bartenders Spyros Kerkiras, Dimitris Kiakos, Stelios Papadopoulos, Xavier Misailidis, Yiorgos Bagos, Yiannis Alexopoulos, Alexandros Gikopoulos, Alexandros Efstratiadis and Antonis Yiannakakis added the following local ingredients in their shakers and presented new tastes to the public: raki, wine from local varieties of grapes (Vilana, Vidiano, Kotsifali), honey from Crete, petimezi (grape molasses), soft drinks made in Crete, unripe grapes, Cretan herbs, variety of jams, liqueurs and aromatic plants.

The new creations are hoped to ultimately spread overseas and give the world the opportunity to “taste CRETE.”