“The first Greek single malt whiskey is official with all the seals and was bottled last September. He is a native of Patras, since he was born here, he grew up here, which is why the first official presentation is taking place in Patras. Its “parents” are The Whiskey Friends, i.e. a group of nine friends who met at whiskey tastings.
This was emphasized by Stelios Peristeris, from the group of nine friends, during the presentation that took place on Friday evening. As he added, “our friendship progressed and at some point, in 2019, we said why there shouldn’t be Greek whiskey” and continued:
“We thought about it a bit and said we’d do it ourselves. This is how a five-year story begins.”
The Whiskey Friends is a non-profit association. The group of friends consists of Stelios Peristeris, who is also the president, Takis Papazisi, Fani Salata, Kimona Polykratis, Yiannis Christoforidis, Dino Economopoulos, Takis Diakos, Frangisko Sigala and Tasos Roubeidis.
Speaking at the presentation, Yannis Christoforidis said that “everything started from one idea, that is to try to legally and officially make the first Greek Single malt whiskey” and added:
“We visited distilleries in Scotland, read the legislation with the help of two lawyers who are in our company and then began the search for how our idea can be implemented.”
Regarding the efforts made, Stelios Peristeris noted that “in April 2020 we started looking for people who could help us, so that we could implement our idea” and continued: “Unfortunately, however the difficulties were too many. Fortunately for us, we first found a brewer, Augustinos Evripiotis, who liked our idea and was willing to help us. In the summer of the same year, we met with the distiller, Anestis Zamanopoulos, who helped us significantly and at the same time introduced us to Giorgos Stathopoulos, of his father’s CHRIS distillery, who took over the production.”
As Stelios Peristeris then reported, “the distillation took place on July 14, 2021 and until three years had passed, as stipulated by the legislation, we would visit Patras and the CHRIS distillery, to see how the product was developing”.
As he pointed out at this point, “one of the problems we had to face was that while in all the distilleries of northern Europe and Scotland we have the descent of the alcoholic strength, in Greece we had the oppositethat is, we were losing quantity and water, as a result of which the alcoholic strength rises”.
“This particular problem”, as he pointed out, “we solved it by adding water based on the tests we did” and added: “Three years have passed, we say everything is fine, we tested it, took it out of the barrel and put it dormant in a tank and then waited a year for the government gazette sheet to come out, which would call the product real whiskey. In July 2025, the government gazette finally came out and in September we bottled 311 bottles”. In fact, as Stelios Peristeris characteristically said, “it is not a commercial product, but a product from friends for friends”.
Also, during the presentation, the member of the group of friends, Takis Papazisis, said that “we wanted to do something that will be 100% Greek and we will be a pioneer”, while regarding the choice of barley and water, the other member of the group, Kimonas Polykratis, said that “we got the barley from the “Macedonia Brewery” and the water from the spring “Goddess” in Taygetus”.
For his part, Giorgos Stathopoulos spoke about the distillation process, saying that it was done in a traditional way, while the distiller, Anestis Zamanopoulos, also spoke at the presentation.
Source: Skai
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