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In many contexts of Greek social life, Scotch whisky has coincidentally become a symbol of “Greekness,” national identity, modernity, and the middle class. This ethnographic study follows the social life of Scotch in Greece through three distinct trajectories in time and space in order to investigate how the meanings of the beverage are projected, negotiated, and acquired by various different networks. By examining the mediascapes of the Greek cultural industry, the Athenian nightlife and entertainment, and the North Aegean drinking habits, the study illustrates how Scotch became associated with modernity, popular music and culture, a lavish style, and an antidomestic masculine mentality.
“Greek Whisky is an important contribution to Greek ethnography. The book focuses on an important and thought-provoking issue and explores aspects of Greek social life and culture that were neglected in the past and remain less known or under¬stood. I enjoyed reading the book for the alternation of perspectives and ethnographic images and for the richness of its documentation and discussion, and I am sure that it will be appreciated by readers interested in Modern Greek history and culture.” • Journal of Modern Greek Studies
“The chapters in the book hang nicely together and are logically sequenced, making the book a good and smooth read… Greek Whisky makes a fine addition to the scholarship of consumption, globalization, food, and culture, as well as the anthropology of Europe.” • H-Sae
“…a well-written and insightful ethnography of modern Greek culture—a good endeavor of ethnographic writing directed not only to students and academics but also to a more general public… I also like the way that the tradition of Greek ethnography blends with new methodological tools and current concerns.” • Elia Petridou, University of the Aegean
“This is an illuminating, compellingly narrated account of whisky as it has been appropriated and consumed in Greece. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in Athens and on the island of Skyros, the author takes the reader on a guided tour of Greek drinking habits as these take form in bars, bouzouki joints, shepherds’ huts, and private homes.” • Charles Stewart, University College London
“…an interesting and timely book…The chapters are tied nicely together and the ethnographic material solid. It is an inspired and well-founded study of a striking phenomenon: the rapid appropriation of whisky as a ‘local’ symbol by important groups of the population in two widely different regions of Greece. The study is based upon impressive command of the relevant general literature.” • Dimitra Gefou-Madianou, Panteion University, Athens
Acknowledgments
List of Displayed Matter
Note on transliteration
Preface
Introduction: The social life of whisky
Chapter 1. The imported spirits industry in Greece
Chapter 2. Dreams of modernity: Imagining the consumption of whisky during the golden age of Greek cinema
Chapter 3. “Keep walking”: whisky marketing and the Imaginary of “scale making” in advertising
Chapter 4. The social life of whisky in Athens. Popular style, night entertainment and bouzoukia with live Greek popular music
Chapter 5. The location of whisky in the North Aegean
Conclusion: Trajectories of Scotch whisky, realms of localization
References