The first time you sit down in a tsipouradiko in Volos, you look for the menu of meze. Usually there isn't one. You order a tsipouro, the small bottle or carafe, and a plate arrives with it. When it is finished, you order a second one, and a different plate comes. That is the whole logic, and a whole afternoon is built on it.
The ritual
The first meze is usually something simple: olives, tomato, a little cheese, perhaps marinated anchovy. As you go on, the plates get more "serious". Prawns, octopus, mussels, sardines, at some point maybe something cooked. No one knows exactly what will come, and that is part of the pleasure. The tsipouradiko chooses for you, depending on what the boat brought in that day.
Tsipouro is served with or without aniseed. People from Volos will tell you the right way is without; others will disagree. You drink it neat or with ice and water, which turns it cloudy.
Where it came from
The tsipouro-bar culture of Volos is tied to the port and to the refugees from Asia Minor, who settled in large numbers in the city after 1922, mainly in Nea Ionia. Dockworkers, factory workers, fishermen: all of them needed a cheap drink with something to nibble after work. The tsipouradiko became their coffee house. Over the years it became the city's trademark.
Thessaly is one of the main tsipouro-producing regions of Greece. Tyrnavos, a few kilometres from Larissa, is known as one of the capitals of the spirit. In Volos, though, tsipouro met the sea, and that changed everything.
A few tips
Go with company. A tsipouradiko is not for a quick meal, it is for conversation that lasts for hours. Don't expect only fish, but don't expect souvlaki either. If you don't drink alcohol, ask: most places will serve meze with a soft drink or beer, the price is just worked out differently.
Tsipouro bars are scattered all over the city, but most are near the port and in the neighbourhoods around the centre. Take a walk along the waterfront and choose the one full of locals. That is usually the best sign.
The best tsipouradiko is the one where the waiter looks at you, counts the empty carafes on the table and brings the next meze before you ask.
