Brandy

Brandy occupies a narrow but specific corner of Greek and Cypriot cooking, almost always in doughs and syrups rather than in savoury dishes. Metaxa, blended in Piraeus since 1888, is what most Greek recipes mean by it, although it is not strictly a brandy at all: it is a blend of aged grape distillates with muscat wine and botanicals, sold in three, five and seven star grades.

Melomakarona dough usually takes a measure of brandy, as does the dough for diples and for kourabiedes, where it works with the butter to keep the biscuit short and crumbly rather than tough. It also goes into karydopita and into the syrups poured over walnut cakes, where a spoonful carries an aroma robust enough to survive a boiling that would strip out anything more delicate.

Cyprus makes its own brandy and built a national drink around it. The brandy sour, brandy with lemon squash, a dash of bitters and soda over plenty of ice, was created at a hotel in Platres in the 1930s and remains the island's standard long drink, reputedly built to look like an ordinary iced tea for a guest who preferred not to be seen drinking.