Metaxa Sour

Greece's answer to the classic sour, featuring Metaxa's unique grape brandy-wine blend with its distinctive amber color and muscat notes.

Metaxa was created in 1888 by Spyros Metaxa, a Greek entrepreneur born on the island of Kefalonia in 1848 into a family of silk merchants — the Greek word for silk is metaxi, from which the family name and the brand name both derive. Spyros built the first Metaxa distillery in Piraeus in 1888, choosing the port city for its access to Mediterranean shipping lanes. He wanted to create a spirit smoother than the rough distillates common in 19th-century Greece, and his key innovation was blending aged grape brandy with sweet Muscat wines from the island of Samos — wines whose floral, aromatic richness tempered the harshness of the base spirit. A proprietary bouquet of Mediterranean botanicals, including May rose petals, was added in a special steeping process before the blend was aged in Limousin oak casks. By 1900 Metaxa was exporting to the United States; by 1900 it had already expanded to Istanbul and Odessa. Originally sold as cognac until French appellation regulations in 1937 restricted that term to the Charente region, it was then classed as brandy until subsequent European regulations required brandy to contain only wine distillates — excluding the Muscat wine component. Rather than change the recipe, the house accepted its status as a unique Greek spirit, and the designation has stuck. Today only five people throughout Metaxa's history have served as Metaxa Master, the custodian of the blending formula. The Metaxa Sour applies the classic sour template to this amber spirit's particular sweetness and botanical depth.