With the first drops of rain another summer season comes to a close. The days are getting shorter and the sunset colors are deeper red and purple. A line of small fishing boats appears in the horizon every sunset. They are fishing for squid, for this is the season when shawls of them arrive to the coast of Thassos. There is a fresher, cooler breath in the air; a reminder that winter is approaching.

     It has been a good summer. The warm sunny weather continued for the whole of September. The first fallen leaves bring a new urgency. The tourists may be leaving but this is a busy time for the Thassians. Autumn is the time to gather the grapes, which must be pressed to produce the fantastic Thassian wine, ouzo and of course, tsipouro. The wines are produced first and then the tsipouro must be distilled from what is left from the pressing. How ever, on Thassos, you will find many that use their grape harvest solely to produce a fine tsipouro. As soon as the tsipouro is safely put away in the cellars, the olive picking season will start.

During the month of October the grapes of Thassos are harvested. Almost every family has at least a small vineyard somewhere on the island. It is a backbreaking job, which marks the beginning of at least two months of hard work for most of the islanders. Whole families, including the children, join in to help each other collect the grapes. After they have all been collected, they are brought home and placed in cisterns or half barrels. In past years, the grapes were tramped on with bare feet to extract their sweet juices, but today most grapes are crushed with machines instead. Those that will make wine will place the juice into wine barrels for the fermentation process. All of the leftovers are collected and placed in other barrels to ferment for several weeks. Then the leftovers are distilled to extract small quantities of tsipouro.      Those families that choose not to make wine take their crushed grapes and their juices, placing them in barrels to start the fermentation process. Nothing else is added, and the only thing done to the grapes in the barrels is to stir them every few days. After several weeks it will be distilled to extract large quantities of tsipouro.      Tsipouro is a drink very similar to the more familiar drink ouzo, but they are very different. Ouzo is the mass-produced drink where the tsipouro is a pure extract from grapes. Families in Thassos produce tsipouro in the traditional way as their fathers and grandfathers did before them.

A Thassian collecting grapes from her vines

     First, they have to obtain a special license, which permits them to use the communal distillery for a certain day. The pressed grapes that have already fermented for a several weeks are placed in the large copper cauldron of the distillery, and the top of the cauldron is sealed. A fire is lit under the cauldron and the steam from the boiling cauldron escapes through a copper pipe, which starts from the lid of the cauldron and passes through a condenser filled with cold water where the steam condenses into tsipouro.

     This is a joyous time and is celebrated by the tasting of the new tsipouro. The distillery operates non-stop day and night; the nightly vigil livened by song and meats or freshly caught squid and fish grilling on the fire. Drop by drop the tsipouro is collected and stored in glass demijohns (large narrow-necked bottles). It is a pure and strong drink with a very slight aniseed taste, but with no morning after effects.

An olive mill in the village Rachoni

The olive picking season starts in early November. The hills and mountains all around the island of Thassos come alive with the sounds of families collecting the olives, like they have done for generations. Men use long sticks to beat the olives down from the trees, while women and children pick them either by hand or in large nets spread under the olive trees. When the olives have been gathered they are taken to the olive mill where they are crushed and pressed to extract the famous Thassos olive oil.      The first oil of the season is the best and is used for salads. The old oil from last year is left for frying or for lighting the icon lamps in the church.

      Only in mid December can the people of Thassos slow down and start preparing for Christmas.