A distillery with precious past

• Category: Interviews
There are some businesses that have something special, something old and unique. They combine precious past, hard present and ambitious future... Such is Karonis Distilleries, a lovely family-run business in the suburbs of Nafplion Greece. Its dedicated owners have managed to maintain this historical distillery and to develop it even more, by creating a small museum that narrates the history of the distillery.

Mr Giannis Karonis, owner of this distillery, talks proudly about the business of his family. "Karonis Distilleries were founded in 1869 in Nafplion, so it basically counts on 140 years of life. We are a traditional distillery, one of the five oldest distilleries in Greece, and the fifth generation of our family runs today the business. Our products are ouzo, tsipouro, mastic liqueur and cherry liqueur. The distillery is located in Agia Paraskevi, Nafplion, in a private space of 5 sq. km, on the way to Palamidi, the fortress of Nafplion. In our facilities, we have two copper stills, one still of 800 liters for ouzo and another of 1,000 liters for tsipouro. Both stills get warm with steam. Moreover, the distillery houses a museum in its facilities."

How was the museum created?

The museum of Karonis Distilleries was established in 2007. Its exhibits date since the foundation of the distillery and include books, invoices, old stills, tools, photos, bottles and many others. Our oldest exhibits are some accounting documents from 1869, the safe box of the distillery that was constructed in 1840-1850 in Marseille France (you can find an exact safe box in the museum of Bouboulina in Spetses) and one of our first stills constructed in 1881 by company EGROT in Paris with its bill of purchase. The museum is open all year round and visitors can tour by themselves. They can also watch the production process.

Do you distribute your products in the rest of Greece or abroad?

We distribute our products mostly in Peloponnese and Athens, but our plan is to start exports in other countries.

More info at: Karonis