Cocktails in Pakistan
Carlson, Tucker
Cocktails in Pakistan In the Muslim world, a drink is never just a drink. BY TUCKER CARLSON Rawalpindi, Pakistan PEOPLE OFTEN REFER to Dubai as the Hong Kong of the Gulf, but it's really more...
...He didn't fear a police raid...
...He looked annoyed...
...He seemed sort of desperate...
...It went on like this for half an hour, the manager becoming increasingly adamant and agitated—"We don't sell liquor here...
...For many older Pakistanis, it is also an exercise in nostalgia...
...The Islamic Republic of Pakistan wasn't always so relentlessly Islamic...
...The country got prohibition...
...But mostly drink...
...I stopped in one afternoon to talk to the manager, a chubby, 30ish man named Hussain Abbas...
...Booze is an emotional subject in Pakistan...
...Even by the standards of hotel bars, it's a pretty unappealing place...
...I admired him, but I couldn't help thinking he was reckless...
...The next year, he passed a broad prohibition order...
...Outside of clubs maintained by foreign embassies (the notably sleazy Chinese Club, for instance), there are virtually Tucker Carlson, a host of CNN's Crossfire, is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...So what's it like running a bar in a dry country...
...Visitors are escorted to a concrete room while their credentials are checked...
...A sign on the door says, "For Foreign Non-Muslims Only...
...He asked me if I could help get it placed in the International Herald Tribune...
...In contrast to hashish, which is made locally and is therefore widely tolerated, alcohol is seen by fundamentalist Muslims as a symbol of Western decadence...
...He turned out to be by far the most outspoken person I interviewed in Pakistan...
...But you'd have to find him first...
...If you were to write a cultural history of Pakistan, Bhandara is one of the first people you'd want to interview...
...These were especially tough times for Minoo Bhandara, the Zoroastrian CEO of the Murree Brewery, Pakistan's lone producer of alcoholic beverages...
...Consider Pakistan...
...That didn't happen...
...The airport alone probably has more liquor stores per square foot than any building on the planet...
...In Pakistan, floodwater pants are considered a mark of piety...
...Many secular Muslims see it the same way, which may account for why so many of them serve alcohol in their homes...
...Certain others hate it for the same reason...
...Certain Arabs love Dubai because it's not at all like where they live...
...In a country where drinking is a political act, it's not surprising that the man who produces the drinks is political...
...In 1978, Gen...
...no bars...
...President Zulfikar Bhutto, who began enforcing prohibition before he was overthrown, "was drunk most of the time," Bhandara said...
...We serve only soft drinks and snacks," he replied...
...Though it was only 10:00 in the morning, he offered me a drink...
...Muslims could still buy booze with a doctor's prescription...
...This isn't a question so much as a statement...
...Islamabad has precisely one, a smoky, windowless room in the Marriott hotel called the Bassment...
...A sparkling, semi-independent emirate on the Arabian Sea, Dubai is where rich Arabs go to gamble, meet hookers, and drink...
...as I made my way through two pints...
...Which, of course, is the appeal...
...This loophole was closed...
...He meant it as a profound compliment...
...In Pakistan, having a bottle of bootleg Johnnie Walker in your house is a subtle expression of rebellion and independence, the equivalent of wearing a thong under your uniform, or keeping a pet cockroach in your cell...
...When you hear an Osama bin Laden sympathizer rant about the decadence and hypocrisy of the Arab ruling class, you can be certain he's picturing a nightclub in Dubai...
...I repeat again, we do not serve alcoholic beverages...
...There was every expectation that Pakistan would continue to go the way of Turkey, an essentially secular country with a largely Muslim population...
...The walls of Bhandara's office are covered with 19th-century lithographs of British soldiers on horseback...
...Getting into the Murree Brewery in Rawalpindi isn't easy...
...Scotch is West, green tea is East, and if you want to know which direction a country is headed, take a look at its liquor laws...
...Liquor had been restricted since the country was founded, but only sort of...
...The national airline doesn't serve cocktails (but, like AA, does allow smoking...
...Musharraf likes his Scotch...
...The weirdest part was, the manager didn't have anything to hide, at least not from the government...
...He wasn't doing anything illegal...
...By offering you a drink, your host is signaling his sympathy with the West, and his contempt for Islamic fundamentalism...
...My country is being hijacked by crazies, your host is saying without saying it, but on some level I'm not playing along...
...Religious minorities were tolerated...
...In 1947, it was passed to Bhandara's family, which has continued to brew beer and distill whiskey for (increasingly limited) local consumption...
...Bhandara pointed out the window...
...Thirsty Muslims turned to Christian bootleggers (who were permitted to purchase liquor with a permit) or flew to Dubai for the weekend...
...The airports have prayer rooms instead of lounges...
...The cultural changes were immediate, and characteristically cosmetic...
...The company was founded in 1861 to supply British troops...
...On the other hand, it's the only place...
...He wasn't interested...
...Thanks to centuries of British rule, it's always Scotch...
...Inside, the brewery looks more like a European colonial outpost than a part of modern Pakistan...
...Is that right...
...Before I left, Bhandara handed me an op-ed he'd written explaining why Pakistan had "mollycoddled" creeps like the Taliban for so many years...
...Some years ago the buildings were torched by a Muslim mob, and security has been tight ever since...
...Thirty years ago, it was not uncommon for middle-class Pakistanis to wear Western clothes, go to night clubs, and send their kids to Christian convent schools...
...Isn't that begging for another mob with matches...
...Men began shortening their trousers to a religiously acceptable length...
...There are no liquor stores or Bud-weiser billboards in Pakistan...
...Zia ul-Haq shuttered all liquor stores...
...Islam (according to some interpretations anyway) prohibits intoxicants of any kind...
...He wanted to talk politics...
...And Bhandara is...
...The Bassment operates with state approval, a nod to the necessity of keeping the international press corps well liquored...
...For a number of complicated and still-disputed reasons, the march toward Westernization halted in the late 1970s, as a succession of presidents made political alliances with the fundamentalist fringe...
...In the '50s, there was even an operating synagogue in Karachi...
...If you run the only brewery in a nation seething with Islamic fundamentalism, do you really want to publicize your disdain for Islamic fundamentalists...
...He wasn't afraid to savage religious leaders or the Pakistani government...
...I declined and asked him about the brewing business...
...It's a dividing line, a declaration of cultural sympathies...
...The president lives across the street," he said...
...I said, taking a sip of my beer...
...There's a high wall around the compound and armed guards at the gate...
...He feared his fellow citizens...
...The staff is surly, and there's only one kind of beer...
...Dubai is drenched with booze...
...Go to dinner at the house of an educated, affluent Pakistani and the first thing you're likely to be asked is: Would you like a Scotch...
...Photographs of the facility are not allowed, for fear they might wind up in the paper and incite violence...
...BY TUCKER CARLSON Rawalpindi, Pakistan PEOPLE OFTEN REFER to Dubai as the Hong Kong of the Gulf, but it's really more like Vegas...
...I asked...
...Women stopped appearing in public in revealing clothing...
Vol. 7 • January 2002 • No. 19
