Raki, the Turkish national drink, is a clear brandy made of distilled grapes, flavored with anise. It has the licorice-y taste of ouzo and sambuca, and as with the Greek and Italian spirits, it’s usually consumed simply with water and ice.
Traditionally, raki goes into the glass first (the better to gauge the amount of alcohol to be imbibed), followed by an equal amount of water, and finally an ice cube or two. Raki turns cloudy when water is added, so it’s sometimes referred to as “lion’s milk.”
“In Turkey, when someone calls and asks if you want to go out to drink raki, you know they probably want to talk about something important,” says Ozkan Yilmaz of Turkitch, a recently opened Turkish restaurant in Chicago (565 W. Diversey Parkway). “Maybe it’s about some love affair or perhaps a promotion at work.”
It’s traditional to consume raki with meals, starting with mezes, tapaslike plates of appetizers. The word ”meze” covers a range of different foods, including melon, cheese, red pepper paste and kofte (meatballs). Traditional mezes offer a lot of varied tastes, and what’s most amazing is that the water and ice dial down the intensity of the raki so that it works well with even big flavors. The light spiciness of the raki helps it stand up to a wide range of foods.
As you might suspect, there are traditional practices — rituals, if you will — that have grown up around raki.
“For raki, you always use long, thin glasses, and you click the glasses at the bottom rather than the top,” says Yilmaz. “The youngest person at the table pours the raki and the oldest person takes the first sip. Very traditional.”
Raki — like ouzo, sambuca, Pernod and absinthe — can be challenging to use as the base spirit in co*cktails. That’s probably why, as Yilmaz told us, raki is rarely used in co*cktails back home in Istanbul. For a slight variation on tradition, however, mix equal amounts of Raki and seltzer for a refreshing, effervescent raki highball.
Raki is usually not consumed by oneself, says Hazan Aydin, brand manager at Diageo, the company that owns the Yeni Raki brand. “Raki is not a solo act” and drinking raki, she says, is all about “lively conversations with friends and family.”
When raki starts flowing, typical Turkish diners become very sociable and move from table to table to engage with total strangers. At a recent dinner at Turkitch, about midway through the mezes, several people came up, grabbed chairs and started chatting with us as if we were old friends. Then we danced. Sociability is the most enjoyable raki-related custom.
Raki is readily available in Chicago and nationwide at Binny’s, which offers several brands of raki, including Yeni and Efe.
We plan to serve raki highballs on Thanksgiving. Considering how well raki pairs with meze, it should work with the many flavors of the Thanksgiving table. At the very least, it will make for a very sociable gathering.
David Hammond is a freelance writer.
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