Metaxa

Metaxa is a line of branded Greek spirits, each an amber blend of distilled spirits and sweet Muscat wine from the island of Samos, finished with Mediterranean botanicals and aged in oak barrels. It was created in Greece in 1888 by Spyros Metaxa, born in 1848 into a family of silk merchants, who developed the drink while running a tavern, originally labeling it as a cognac and later as a brandy before naming regulations required a separate classification for the product. The company remained independently owned until it was sold to Grand Metropolitan in 1989, and was later acquired by Remy Cointreau in 2000. It is sold today under numbered designations such as 5 star, 7 star and 12 star, along with a Private Reserve line, the stars generally understood to signal the age and quality tier of the product.