Raw gold that, by mistake - but maybe intentionally - has a little rust on it. The red of the rust gave it the sweetness, the deception of sin. And so, as nothing is pure, neither color nor joy, but neither sorrow, we all dripped a little rust in our lives. Rust and gold are everything.

The Fishermen and the sacrifice of those locked in the Genoese Castle. The Venetian Negroponte, Chalcis with its "crazy waters," which is now Greek. Piraeus, a rising port and commercial center. Athens, under the shadow of the Parthenon, the capital of the kingdom.

In these places and in the fire of the events of the turbulent 19th century, the members of the Vamvaka family, survivors of the destruction of Psara, will live.

Antonis, the son, with his half-sister Augustina as an ally, beloved Miss of Amalia's Honors, will change the fate of the large family, creating "the best drink in the world."

The Bavarian kings and the leaders of '21, the Phanariots, the politicians - loyalists and dissidents -, the shipowners, the merchants, the workers, and the fighters, in this family epic, will become the philosophical stone that turns everything into gold, to give birth to an equally precious drink.

Negroponte is the first part of the "Rust and Gold" duology, in which, alongside the breathtaking personal story of the Vamvaka family, we follow the events-milestones of the 19th century that led to the creation of the urban class in Greece.