I'll Drink To That

For most westerners here in KSA, alcohol is a perennially interesting topic. Outside of Dhahran camp, it is strictly forbidden to possess, make, sell, buy, transport, or even drink alcohol in any form in the Kingdom. But inside camp, in the usual through-the-looking-glass twist, westerners can possess and drink alcohol. The twist is that we can't buy it. So how can we possess and drink it if we can't buy it? Westerners can legally make alcohol in Dhahran camp.

Identity purposefully hidden. He's holding a decanter and glass of spirits that he distilled himself.

This situation is a relict of the days when Aramco was an American company and Dhahran camp housed only expats. These particular rules were negotiated by Texaco and Chevron with the Saudi royals and over time have became codified. The matawah (religious police) don't like it one bit but there is little they can do about it. They've had some influence though: selling or even giving alcohol to Saudis can have particularly dire consequences--you can be fired and deported from the country in less than 24 hours if caught.

Every single house on camp, even the 500 square foot apartments, have special rooms with vents, extra electrical power outlets (usually a couple of 220V outlets along with extra 110V outlets), and floor drains: these are the still rooms. Still as in moonshine. Still as in distillation.

This is a photo of a particularly elaborate still room in one of the larger houses on camp. The still is vintage 1955 or '56. There are many stills of this age that are passed from one expat to another. These old stills require a lot of TLC: tubes get plugged, welds go bad, some parts simply wear out with time. If not carefully monitored, they can also explode and burn houses down--this actually happened over the eid holiday a couple of weeks ago.


The usual method for making "spirits" is to create ethanol by fermenting yeast and sugar, a natural process that can create a solution with 14-18% alcohol. A single distallation run of that solution can up the alcohol content to around 40% (while reducing the liquid volume by 75%). A second distillation produces a more typical 80-85% alcohol content--another 75% reduction in liquid volume. You can see that you need to start with large volumes of yeast and sugar-water.

The commissary sells sugar in 50-lb bags and yeast in 2-lb packages. The yeast is not the more potent brewing yeast but it seems to do the trick. There are very strict regulations on bringing in yeast and Saudi Customs keeps a particular eye out for this. You can get into quite a bit of trouble if you try to carry brewers yeast in and get caught.

The result of this distillation process is what is called "white." To make its cousin "brown," you need to add smoked oak chips or some other tannin source. These chips are commercially available in the US and EU and people generally bring them into the Kingdom by putting them in personal luggage. You can add other flavorings such as juniper berries to white to make gin. Without some flavor, white is more or less the equivalent of plain vodka. Brown can taste like whiskey or even mid-range scotch if the guy is a real artist.

When you go to parties where alcohol is served, you have your choice of white or brown and the usual mixers: water, ice, soda water, cola (to my horror, lots of people here mix brown with diet Coke!), twist of lemon, etc. And that is how you order it: "Give me brown on the rocks with a lemon twist please."

That ordering part? Big parties are catered, staffed by mostly Philippino waiters who carry around food and make your drinks for you. If they were to drink themselves and then get caught while inebriated, the westerner who hired them could be fired and deported. You've got to wonder what they hell they think about these crazed, drunken westerners.

People do make "wine" by fermenting grape juice. The commissary sells grape juice in very large containers. I've found both the white and red varieties to be fairly nasty in large part because the grape juice that begins the process is often adulterated with additional sugar and chemicals and is not pure juice. But if you are jonesing for "wine" it can be had with a bit of effort.

Fortunately for me, I've always been a fan of brown spirits.

These are 5-gallon glass jugs full of brown, waiting for the holiday party circuit to begin.

I plan to set up a still for myself to make my own supply of brown. I am going to see if I can bring a new still in to KSA. I'm going to start with this cheap plastic still. If that gets through Customs in one piece, I've got my eye on this spiffy stainless steel baby. That one may require a little more creativity in transport. I plan to carry it in myself rather then trust Saudi Customs.

A round of brown for everyone! Cheers!

Postscript: Hops and similar things used to make beer are considered contraband drugs. Getting caught bringing them into Kingdom can result in the death penalty. Needless to say, they are not available except perhaps at high risk and high cost on a black market. I haven't come across a single person that attempts beer or any of its alcoholic cousins. Your choices: white, brown, or manky whine.