- Where: Pitsidia, Old Fountain Square;
- When: October 4, 2025, 20:00;
- Who: Haritos Tzagkarakis’ band live;
- What: Raki, village cooking, and a chance to join the kitchen if you dare.
Everyone knows the rakokazana season belongs to November. That is when the fires are lit, the copper stills shine, and the first cold nights demand a glass of something warming. Yet Pitsidia insists on being contrary. Their Raki Festival this year falls on October 4, while the rest of Crete waits a month longer.
Is it for the tourists? Probably. October marks the end of Crete’s tourist season, when the beaches remain warm but flights are beginning to thin out. It is easier to lure visitors into the village square than in February, when the rain slaps sideways and the only thing moving is the laundry. Still, the decision feels less like a strategy and more like a wink: Pitsidia knows its crowd.
The Rakokazano Mystique
To understand why people gather around a still as though it were a shrine, you need to step into Potamies in November. That is the archetype, the standard, the place where Venizelos’ 1920 distillation licenses are still honored in the smoke curling from the chimney.
The process is straightforward, but never rushed. Grapes are crushed, their pomace left to ferment for forty days in barrels. When ready, the mass is mixed with water, set into the copper still, and heated by a fire that must be watched like a restless child—not too hot, not too mild. Steam rises, weaves through copper pipes, cools, and then drips into a clay jug. Slowly, drop by drop, comes the protoraki, the first spirit of the season.
But nobody is here for chemistry. The rakokazano is magnetic due to the events that occur around it. People who did not plan to stay end up staying. Strangers lean on the same table. Laughter cuts through the smoke. Music begins without anyone really deciding it should.
Plates, Glasses, and Endless Hours
The food keeps the glasses steady. Potatoes roasted whole in embers, green and black olives salted just right, cabbage crunching raw in the hand. Snails sautéed with rosemary, pork chops and sausages sizzling on the grill, apaki giving off their smoky perfume. Sometimes a pot of hondros—barley pasta cooked down in broth—appears at the end, heavy and soothing. Seasonal fruits—pomegranates, quinces, walnuts—spill across the table as though the trees themselves joined the feast.
The hours lengthen, bend, and then vanish altogether. Nobody cares. The fire glows, the jug refills, and the conversation stretches into something timeless.
It is not the business that keeps this tradition alive. Raki may provide a little income, but the true currency is companionship. The rakokazano is social glue in liquid form, a ritual that insists: sit down, stay awhile, drink, eat, laugh, belong.
Raki Unites People
So Pitsidia may welcome tourists in October, and Potamies may light their stills in November. My own memories, though, live in Ano Asites, where the mountain air is cold enough to make the first sip feel like fire in the chest.
The details differ, but the truth remains the same: “Raki unites people.”
Even if — as I always remind everyone at my table — “Mig does not share raki!”
The twin villages of Ano Asites and Kato Asites, in the province of Malevizi, sit at the eastern foothills of Psiloritis. They are wrapped in vineyards, olive groves, and a history as old as Crete’s battles and conquests. Their very name, Asites, comes from the soldiers of Nikephoros Phokas, who settled here from Assos of Mysia after liberating the island from the Arabs in 961 AD. Venetian records mention the villages as early as 1394.
Today, the villagers are still rooted in the land. They cultivate vines and olives, herd animals, and keep alive the mountain traditions. Walking through the narrow lanes of Ano and Kato Asites, you meet the soul of Crete: painted houses, flowerpots bursting with color, and old-style kafeneia where time politely refuses to move forward.
There are places worth pausing for:
- The Folklore Museum of Ano Asites—a small guardian of memory.
- The old churches—Agia Paraskevi in Ano Asites, Christos in Kato Asites.
- The gorges of Agios Antonios and Agios Charalambos—wild, green, and echoing with birds.
- The Monastery of Agios Georgios Gorgolaini—watching over Kato Asites.
- The mountain refuge at Prinos, reached by dirt road and trail, where the air tastes like pine and stone.
In Ano Asites, there is just one kazano—one copper still for the whole village. Families and neighbors take turns distilling their raki, but they do not do it quietly. Each turn becomes a party.
While the pomace slowly heats and everyone waits for the raki to finally drip, nobody sits around thirsty. Wine flows. Bottles of whiskey and vodka appear. Glasses clink. Someone always raises the first toast too soon.
The music is its own character: a DJ spins everything from Cretan lyra tunes to international hits. You might hear Pentozali followed by Madonna, or a syrto melting into Queen. It does not matter. People dance anyway, under the smoke, under the stars, because in Ano Asites, the kazano is not just about distillation — it is about permission to live loudly.
From Pitsidia to Potamies to Asites, the rakokazano is the same. Grapes are crushed, their pomace ferments for forty days, and then the copper still is fed with firewood. The heat is overseen, the vapors travel, and the first drops of protoraki arrive — strong enough to make your chest glow.
Around it, though, is where the story happens. Friends and strangers lean against the same table, sharing jokes told too loudly, as fiddles strike up a tune. And there you’ll sit, glass in hand, knowing exactly why the motto says: “Raki unites people.”