From Thracian grapes to a rakı that carries a city’s name.

Tekirdağ Rakı — in Turkish, Tekirdağ Rakısı — takes its name from Tekirdağ, the port city on the Sea of Marmara in Turkey’s European region of Thrace, and the story of the brand begins with a state factory there. CNN Türk reported in August 2017 that the Tekirdağ factory was founded on 1 September 1931 and bought its first grapes from local vineyards. According to the same report it made wine until 1942, then cognac as well as wine, and from 1967 it also produced rakı. A local civic leader quoted by the broadcaster called it one of the state’s first major investments in Tekirdağ.

A 2021 history project by students at Bilkent University in Ankara gives the background: the factory, it says, was set up after a report by a French wine expert to make use of the grapes grown across Thrace, began with wine, and later added cognac and rakı. The same project credits the factory manager Avni Mutlu and his colleagues with a rakı made from fresh grapes to a special formula, which was branded as Tekirdağ Rakısı and became one of the factory’s best-known products.

For most of its life the brand belonged to the state. English Wikipedia’s history of rakı says that under the Turkish Republic grape-based rakı was distilled by Tekel, the state spirits and tobacco monopoly, and that Tekel was privatised in 2004. Diageo Türkiye says Mey İçki was founded in 2004 out of the privatisation of Tekel’s alcoholic-drinks division, and that the company came under Diageo in 2011, after which it took the name Diageo Türkiye. English Wikipedia likewise says Diageo operates in Turkey through Mey İçki, acquired in 2011. Diageo Türkiye lists Tekirdağ Rakısı among its rakı brands alongside Yeni Rakı, Kulüp Rakı and Altınbaş.

A place name, Thracian grapes and a gold series.

The name does most of the work. Rather than an invented word or a founder’s surname, the brand uses the name of a city and the wine country around it. English Wikipedia notes that rakı makers around established wine regions such as Tekirdağ, Nevşehir and İzmir may also use fresh grapes, and it singles out Tekirdağ Rakısı for the characteristic flavour associated with its region.

That grape story has been pushed into the product line. The food writer Engin Akın described in Gazete Vatan in June 2009 a Tekirdağ rakı in Mey’s “Trakya” series made with alcohol distilled from fresh Papazkarası and Semillon grapes grown in Thrace, fermented for 72 hours to keep its aromas. English Wikipedia says the Tekirdağ Altın Seri, or Gold Series, followed the trend towards fresh-grape rakı and that many similar products from other companies came after it.

Gold is also the colour of the brand’s gift packaging abroad. The German trade site about-drinks reported in August 2017 that Tekirdağ Gold would be sold in Germany from September that year in a gift box with two glasses designed for the brand and carrying the Tekirdağ logo and lettering. The same report described Tekirdağ Gold as made entirely from grapes, double-distilled and rested for 90 days in barrique casks, and named the Hamburg firm BORCO-Marken-Import as the brand’s exclusive distributor in Germany.

Behind every label sits a legal definition. English Wikipedia says the Turkish Patent Institute registered rakı as a geographical indication in 2009, and Diageo Türkiye quotes the definition of rakı as a colourless distilled spirit that takes its character from grapes and anise grown in Turkey and from traditional production methods, made and processed entirely within Turkey.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are drinks names from Greece, Cyprus and Turkey: Barbayanni, Vallindras, KEO, Mythos, Babatzim, Efe Rakı and Tekirdağ Rakı. Around the eastern Mediterranean, anise spirits, grape spirits, citron liqueur, wine and beer sit at many different points in the trade, from family houses that still carry a founder’s name to labels that began inside a state monopoly or now belong to much larger drinks groups.

A drinks brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the town where it started. That makes the plain questions worth asking: who started it, who owns it now, and where its drinks are actually distilled, brewed or bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its drinks are made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A brand that kept its city’s name after leaving the city.

The brand’s name and its address have since parted. CNN Türk reported in August 2017 that after the Tekirdağ factory was privatised its machinery was taken down and moved to Manisa, in western Anatolia, and that the whole plant had been moved about five months earlier, leaving a single security guard at the site overlooking the sea. Company officials, the report said, cited the smell of anise drifting over the city as one reason for the move. Tekirdağ’s metropolitan mayor at the time, Kadir Albayrak, who the broadcaster said had worked at the factory and served as its director for 14 years before retiring, told CNN Türk he was saddened by the closure. The sources disagree on the date of the factory’s sale: the Bilkent project ties it to Tekel’s privatisation in 2004, while CNN Türk gave 1 March 2014.

Diageo Türkiye today lists its rakı production at the Alaşehir plant in Manisa province and the Nevşehir plant in central Anatolia, and English Wikipedia says the company runs an innovation centre in Alaşehir, the Yenilikhane, with two small copper stills for developing new rakı recipes. Thrace has not dropped out of the picture entirely: the same company lists a wine factory and vineyards at Şarköy, on the Marmara coast of Tekirdağ province.

The name needs a little care online: Tekirdağ is also the name of a Turkish province and its capital city, so the brand is easiest to find as Tekirdağ Rakısı.

For a design guide, Tekirdağ Rakı shows how a place name, a grape story and a gold sub-range can carry a former state brand through privatisation, a change of owner and a move of production to another region. Compare Yeni Rakı, the former Tekel rakı now made by the same company, and Efe Rakı, another Turkish rakı. For this guide we use grape red, gold and Marmara navy with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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