A great article we found here summarises a lot of important main points about ouzo.
“In Greece, ouzo is not just a drink but is way of life; an anise flavored alcoholic aperitif that all Greeks enjoy.
As real scotch is made only in Scotland, as real champagne is the sparkling wine that comes only from certain regions of France, so ouzo is made only in Greece; and no drink made outside of Greece and Cyprus is permitted to be called ouzo.
Though the word ouzo is derived from the Turkish ‘uzum’, which means grapes, this is not a grape based drink. The thing to watch out for with ouzo is that it has a kick like a mule, but one that is not instantly obvious.
Its alcohol content is not all that high, but it is the sugar content of the drink that can be misleading. So at first you may think that the drink is not hitting you but it does later because the alcohol takes time to get absorbed into the blood stream.
Il est élaboré dans la capitale Grec de l’Ouzo, la ville de Plomari sur l’île de Lesbos.
L’Ouzo est fait à partir de la combinaison précise de raisins pressés, d’herbes et de baies.
Tout commence à partir d’alcool élaboré avec la peau du raisin, il est alors mélangé avec des herbes et d’autres ingrédients incluant des étoiles d’anis, coriandre, clou de girofle, racine d’angélique, licorice, menthe, gaulthérie, fenouil, noisette et même de la cannelle et des fleurs de citronnier. Le tout est ensuite bouilli dans un appareil de distillation en cuivre et est contrôlé par un dégustateur.
Does ouzo contain opium and if so, which brands have the most? If you Google search “Coke Arab rumors” the top result you get is in fact from the Coca Cola company! That’s how seriously they take the problem of misinformation. It has often been quoted recently that this is in fact the wrong type of response, especially in this article from the Economist. The gist of the argument is that repeating the rumor reinforces it and that companies should concentrate on putting out a steady stream of positive news instead.
This of course, based on recent work by Derek Rucker and David Dubois, of the Kellogg School of Management, and Zakary Tormala, of Stanford business school, has an element of truth. However it would also depend on the volume of interest and the reasons the rumors is circulating in the first place. So the initial question of “does ouzo contain opium?” perhaps should be redefined as “why are you asking?” It is more than possible that a number of people are looking for opium in ouzo as a positive thing! Maybe ouzo brands should reinforce the rumors to increase sales!!
The analogy with Coke is not a random one of course. According to most sources, Coca Cola did in fact contain cocaine in earlier versions of the recipe. So maybe Coke and ouzo brands should collaborate on the matter because just imagine what would happen if you mix the (supposed) cocaine in Coke with the (imagined) opium in ouzo!
A more matter of fact analysis is in the page we dedicated to the matter of opium in ouzo here.
1oz of ouzo contains 103 calories, 0 fat, 11g of carbohydrates and 0 protein. In the world famous Mediterranean diet, a glass of wine
Ouzo calories: better the drink than the sweets!
accompanying each meal of greek food has set researchers looking for the exact mechanisms of this healthy secret. Not enough research has taken place however concerning the traditional way to enjoy ouzo which has every sign of being an equally healthy choice, if not more so.
Many claim that it in fact developed from the times of hardship when there just wasn’t enough to go around. So Greeks sipped their ouzo with “mezedes”, small quantities of sardines or other fish rich in Omega 3, cheese and fresh vegetables like cucumber. It goes a long way in pre empting the recent “slow eating” movement and many other developments in our knowledge of healthy eating. Ouzo just doesn’t inspire fast consumption and begs to be escorted by this sort of food and…good company!
A new category – premium ouzo brands – in Adolo by Plomari
UNDERSTANDING
“Adolo” the best quality ouzo Isidoros Arvanitis could produce.
A pleasant smell of anise, mastic and fennel derives from this premium category ouzo, distilled by an innovative recipe that may change everything taken for granted until now, as far as ouzo flavor is concerned. It is a crystal clear liquid that brings a light sense of its smelling ingredients to the taster’s mouth. According to the myth, the history of ouzo began in late 19th century. Isidoros Arvanitis, from Plomari village, Lesvos island, experimented on various spirits using a lot of different herbs in order to create the “ouzo”. This myth reaches its peak nowadays, again at Plomari village, where the premium ouzo has been created. More over, Isidoros Arvanitis used to name ”Adolo”, the best quality ouzo he could produce, offering it only to his friends.
BRAND BUILDING
Discovering the premium version of the No. 1 spirit of Greece. The challenge of branding a traditional product for a premium audience.
After the branding success of Ouzo Plomari, the leading Greek spirit drink , Yalos was commissioned to brand its new premium version, called “Adolo”.Our target audience are, opinion leaders who dare to challenge themselves with new choices. The retail environments, are a selection of contemporary bars, gourmet restaurants and of course, glamorous parties. ”Adolo” is a really special spirit, subject to three stages of distillation in order to keep the most valuable part of “the core”. Since, packaging has been proven to be one of the most critical factors in the marketing efforts and ultimate success of a spirit brand, Yalos implemented its expertise packaging design on three axes:
Transforming the traditional character of the well established brand of Ouzo Plomari, to an upmarket visual impact.
Harmonising the experience of the elegant flavouring of the spirit, with the shape of a crystal clear elegant bottle.
Incorporating the visual elements of the distillery brass kettle and hence delivering the look & feel of copper.
Thus creating the first premium ouzo brand of Greece.
A variation – Prawns in Ouzo, Feta & Tomato – click for source
100 gr eggplant
100gr carrots
30ml ouzo
30ml olive oil
50ml cream
salt and pepper to taste
5 No5 sized shrimp
Grate the carrots and eggplants (not too fine), wash and clean the shrimps. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and sautee the shrimps for 3 minutes. Add the vegetables and fry for another 2 minutes. Then add the ouzo and light it up! (Flambe!) As soon as the ouzo has evaporated and the fire is out, add the salt and peppet and cream. Wait it all to congeal and serve. Enjoy with …ouzo of course!
One of the most popular baits for fishing in the U.S. has an interestingly apt name: ouzo baits! Because as you will discover, the true enjoyment of ouzo is most often with fish!
It may well be the case that more and more fishermen are finding the joys of ouzo to accompany those long fishing trips…
…it remains to be seen if it will replace beer as the most popular choice!
It seems a fitting and modern tribute to ouzo and the rebetiko music. Canadian band “Ouzo Power” – click here for their website – makes music that is just perfect for enjoying a glass of ouzo with friends!
Social media failures are fast becoming a part of my daily entertainment. Large and small corporations suddenly naked and unarmed, it is the stuff of slapstick comedy. We all see that long ladder swinging around except Hardy and…bang! Laurel knocks him down. The fun part is that – just like in social media – the stars getting injured often don’t even know what is going on.
Fun, that is, until it comes to your doorstep. Because what the iPad wielding crowd of advertising cracks won’t tell you is that many things can go wrong. The problem is essentially that Facebook, even more than Google, tends to change everything around with no notice. They don’t even tell us what exactly they have changed. It is “magic sauce”. So you are putting your marketing on a platform which you don’t control. At all. The analogy I came up with is that you are making public the name and contact details of every lead coming in. I can see on your wall every “friend” commenting or posting and I can contact him or her. How bad is that?
It all started as I was writing about social media failures on a Greek branding blog. A summary of common or famous mistakes, anything from rogue employees to Boeing not responding warmly enough to fuzzy kids drawings. Incoming message was about a social media conference in Athens and one of the topics was “how Lacta got to have the biggest Facebook brand page in Greece”. (You can watch it here.) Maybe I was in a bad mood, maybe I just didn’t appreciate the tone, mostly for fun I put up a picture on their wall. Their brand of chocolates but they fell out of the bag roughly in the shape of male genitalia. Only if you have a dirty mind of course, I noticed the snow and the scenery personally of course.
Whoops! Three hundred thousand fans of the chocolate saw it. If I was Osama Bin Laden this would be the equivalent of CNN giving me a five minute interview to express my views. It is as if Lacta spent all this money and energy to build a wall, a media platform on which I can shout anything I want. And they can’t stop me! In fact a junior person in the team even clicked “like” from their own brand on it! The picture attracted more likes and was on the wall for a while before they pulled it off. Of course the photo remained in the “Photos” section of their Facebook page for several days. I did another post, they read it and eventually pulled it off from there too. I talked about useful paradigms from technology, well here is a great one for social media: this is just like the way we explore security vulnerabilities!
I can think of hundreds of awful things to do to a brand with social media which won’t even cost much in time all of which have a pretty good chance of enabling a negative backlash. As I explained in another post today, it will happen even without your competitors hiring me. As soon as you reach a critical mass of people that like you and express it publicly, you can be sure that a new group of people, negatively charged will appear. And some of them will want to hurt you.
You can patch a software vulnerability and it is final. Negative publicity however is much harder to deal with.
As real scotch is made only in Scotland, as real champagne is the sparkling wine that comes only from certain regions of France, so ouzo is made only in Greece; and no drink made outside of Greece and Cyprus is permitted to be called ouzo.
