Chacha: Georgia's Grape Spirit and Where to Drink It in Tbilisi

Chacha is what Georgian wine leaves behind. Once the wine comes off its skins, pips and stems, that leftover mass goes into a still, and the clear spirit that comes out is chacha.

In a Georgian cellar the word came first. The National Wine Agency's page on qvevri winemaking uses chacha for the skins and pips a wine ferments on, the same skins that turn amber wine gold, and the spirit took its name from them.

You'll hear it called Georgian vodka, and it isn't. Vodka is usually distilled from grain or potatoes and made to taste of very little; chacha is a pomace brandy, the same family as Italian grappa, and it keeps some character from the grapes it was made from.

The traditional method is simple enough to run at home, which is why so many Georgian families, and some Tbilisi restaurants, pour their own. WIPO's write-up of chacha's protected name sets out the steps.

1. The pomace left after winemaking is sealed in a container, traditionally oak or another wood, and left for at least a month to ferment.
2. The fermented pomace goes into a closed vat with a fire lit underneath, and the heat drives the alcohol off as vapour.
3. The vapour runs through a cooling pipe, condenses and drips out into a bottle as spirit.

Producers take it further. The chachas Chacha Time features on its Instagram include one made from Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane, triple distilled and aged in Caucasian oak, and another from Rkatsiteli and Saperavi, the same grapes Georgian winemakers grow for the wine itself.

Bottled chacha usually starts at about 40%. WIPO describes the drink as 40% or stronger, and the 2 house bottlings Chacha Time pours, a classic and an oak-aged one, are both 40% according to the bar's Instagram.

That makes it the strongest of the traditional Georgian drinks by a distance, roughly 3 times as strong as a glass of dry Saperavi. The legal ceiling is 75%, and homemade chacha, the source of most chacha stories, can run far stronger than a shop bottle with nothing on the jug to say so.

Chacha is a protected name. Georgia's Ministry of Agriculture registered it as a geographical indication on 13 December 2011, so a bottle sold as chacha has to meet a written set of rules.

Rule	What it says	What it means for you
Raw material	Grape pomace, the solids left from winemaking	Fig or mulberry spirit is chacha by custom, not by the protected name
Where the grapes grew	1 or more of Georgia's 10 wine regions	Pomace from abroad doesn't qualify
Where it's made	Distilled and bottled anywhere in Georgia	A Tbilisi distillery can make it from Kakhetian pomace
Distillation	By water or steam	It's a distilled grape spirit, not flavoured vodka
Strength	No more than 75% alcohol	The cap is a ceiling; shop bottles usually sit near 40%
Added flavour	Natural aromas allowed, named on the label	A flavoured chacha has to say so

So the label does your homework: it gives you the strength, any added flavouring and, on the better bottles, the grapes. A bottle with no label isn't covered by any of this, and that's the one to pace.

Most chacha is clear and unaged, and that's what you'll get if you simply ask for a chacha. Beyond it sit 3 more styles worth knowing before you face a long list.

Style	What it is	Where you'll meet it in Tbilisi
Classic	Clear and unaged, from grape pomace	Bars, restaurants and the end of a wine tasting
Oak-aged	Rested in oak and golden in the glass; Chacha Time's Instagram credits the oak with vanilla and spice	Tasting sets, wine shops, and one shop that sold it from the barrel
Fruit	Distilled from fig, mulberry, quince or feijoa instead of grapes	Chacha Time lists all 4 among its 40+ chachas
Infused	Grape chacha steeped with something else, such as garlic and chilli	Small bars that make their own, such as Sonder Bar

Chacha is a table drink. At a supra it arrives with a toast, you drink when the toast ends, and there's food in front of you the whole time, which is the point.

Drink it neat from a small glass and leave the ice and mixers to the cocktail bars. Sip the first one: at 40% or more, a slow start is what keeps you at the table for the later toasts, and on a pub crawl 1 chacha is a toast while 3 is the night.

Food is the other half. Salty, fatty and sour things work best, so think pickles, cheese, grilled pork and a plate of khinkali, the classic partner, where the hot broth follows the spirit.

Expect to be offered it, too. One reviewer was handed a shot of chacha as a hello at The Embassy Bar, and one guest's review of a home cooking class ends with a friendly warning to watch out for the chacha.

Start at a bar that takes it seriously. Chacha Time, one of the best bars in Tbilisi, calls itself Georgia's first chacha museum, and one reviewer's tasting set came with a bartender's account of where chacha comes from.

• After a wine tasting: plenty of wine tastings end on a glass of chacha. One reviewer took 5 wines with a chacha at Nino Meris Wine Selection, and another says Vinoground finished its tasting with one.
• With dinner: order the house chacha where the kitchen makes its own. One reviewer's homemade chacha at Kneina turned out to be a strong liquor, and Tbileli lists homemade chacha next to its natural wines.
• With a Georgian lunch: one reviewer rated the chacha at Cafe Irioni the best they'd had in Tbilisi, and another paired it with the chakapuli.

Cocktail bars use chacha where you'd expect vodka or pisco. At Chacha Time one reviewer came back about 4 times for a berry chacha sour, and at Crossroads Bar a cocktail called the Sololaki mixes smoked chacha with sangrita and lemon, a sweet-smoky take on a Bloody Mary.

If the strength makes you nervous, this is the gentle way in. A cocktail spreads one measure across a whole glass, with juice and ice doing the work a plate of pickles does at a supra.

Buy a labelled bottle, not a mystery jug, from one of the wine shops that stock chacha alongside the wine. One reviewer at Wine Store Orbeliani mentions a 6 GEL cushioned wrap for anyone buying wine or chacha, and another bought chacha straight from an oak barrel at Winery Khareba in 2025.

Oak-aged chacha is one of the easier things to bring home. It's sealed, it doesn't spoil, and a bottle that comes in a wooden gift box does the wrapping for you.