hfly

IMHO, if you have drivers etc. especially if Christian Pakistanis they will generally offer you illegal booze, starting at about $80 a bottle for homemade moonshine to hundreds for real spirits. Best to stay away from it altogether.

dizzy

"homemade moonshine"-just out of curiosity, what are you supposed to do if you get really sick off of it? Go to the hospital and tell them you had some bad cough medicine? Do the docs then report you? Just wondering...

GUWonder

The doctors usually don't report it nor do they necessarily report STDs and drug addictions that members of the royal family have (and don't usually get punished for).

chgoeditor

Having lived in Saudi Arabia as an expat (granted, I was there as a teenager, but it was no secret what was going on), I can tell you that the "homemade moonshine," commonly known as siddiqui (Arabic for "my friend") being made in Saudi is a carefully honed art. In generaly, you can erase from your mind images of backwater-Ozarks cousin-married-to-cousin makin'-moonshine families. I think you're unlikely to get sick off of homemade booze. (If you're drinking perfume, which is what hardcore alcoholics without access to the homemade stuff do, that's another story.) The real risk comes from stills that explode...operator error, you know.

We lived in a large compound and upon procurement of a still, my parents were also given a copy of this document, http://www.aramco-brats.com/museum/bf_cover.htm, the Blue Flame, which is a famous (or infamous) and classic piece of literature that I suspect most English-speaking, alcohol-drinking expats in Saudi have read, or at least heard of. Interesting reading, but don't try this at home, kids.

dhuey

A few years ago, I got as a gift a home brew beer kit. It was actually quite easy to brew some pretty tasty beer -- and I'm not usually good at that sort of thing. After a few months of that, I put the kit away and just left the brewing to the world's brewmasters. (They haven't banned beer in Berkeley yet, but perhaps one day they'll limit consumption to "Fair Trade" beer)

I'm sure it would be easy to set up your own mini brewery just about anywhere with access to basic ingredients.

MoreMilesPlease

A supplier of sid (distilled alchohol) liked his product a bit to much. He went to the camp doctor. This is the coversation as reported by my friend.

Doc: If we weren't in Saudi I might think you have a mild case of alcohol poisoning. Maybe a bad batch of spirits. Have you just returned from leave.

Friend: No, been here 4 months.

Doc: Well, if you weren't in Saudi I would suggest that you stay away from any type of alcohol. If you did have the beginnings of alcohol poisoning then anymore could kill you. Since there is no way that you could have alcohol poisoning then this must not be the case. Come back next week if you are not feeling better.

The doctor gave him some pills, probably antibiotics. My friend stopped drinking for the next six months. He also upped his quality control on the people running his still! This was a camp doctor on a German run compound. Local hospitals/clinics you would take your chances.

MoreMilesPlease

Beer and wine are easy!

Large jerry can needed.

Wine- grape juice, sugar and yeast. mix well, keep in warm place. When bubbling stops strain and bottle.

Beer- Non-alcoholic beer, sugar, yeast. Mix well, keep in warm place. When bubbling stops, strain and bottle.

Everyone had their little additions and specialties. Red wine, white wine, rice wine, light beer, dark beer, throw in some tea bags for tannin etc...

It was really funny when you saw all the expats leaving the grocery stores with nothing but cases of grape juice, near beer, sugar and yeast. No food just booze making supplies.

Ahh the memories.................

secretbunnyboy

How you get treated by anyone with vague authority (or in fear) depends a lot on whether you're (say) a Pakistani migrant laborer with practically no civili/human/labor rights or the scion of a prominent/wealthy Saudi family, of course.

GUWonder

Yes, and along the same lines I mentioned this earlier in the thread:

dizzy

Thanks
I wasn't expecting anywhere near the number of responses that were posted. I admit when I heard moonshine I imagined the Southern Mississippi bathtub variety (no offense to S. Mississippians....). I didn't realize that it was such a developed 'industry'.

chgoeditor

I can still recollect the smell of wine as began to ferment in our kitchen's pantry in a Rubbermaid trashcan. A very distinctive odor

Never heard about tea bags in wine(?) for tannins, but will never forget my parents adding charred woodchips to their "white" (i.e., gin/vodka/rum...any clear spirit) to turn it into "brown" (whiskey/bourbon/etc.).

The first time I went on "real" winery and distillery tours, it was an interesting experience. The big-time places do it a little differently!

For those who are home beer brewers: When I lived in Saudi in the 1980s, they no longer sold hops (apparently it was available at an earlier time), but what we called "near beer" (non-alcoholic) was available. I'll take MoreMilesPlease's word that you can convert non-alcoholic beer into alcoholic. Despite the ban on hops sales, the government tacitly permitted the homemade hard alcohol and wine by allowing grocers to sell all of the ingredients in commercial quantities...sugar, yeast, entire store aisle of cases of grape juice in 750 ml bottles with recorking mechanisms, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if Saudi Arabia had the highest per-capita consumption of grape juice of any country in the world.

chgoeditor

Oh, although this thread has sort of devolved into a discussion of homemade alcohol, if anyone's still tempted to try to sneak in alcohol or drugs...

Unless it's changed since I last read about it, the Saudi jails aren't like US jails. They don't spend $25K a year coddling prisoners. When I lived there, it wasn't the responsibility of the jail to feed or clothe you. Saudi families would bring food to their relatives or, in the case of expats, their employer or the embassy would presumably take care of them. So don't expect a pleasant stay.

secretbunnyboy

Do you genuinely believe being in a US jail is like being "coddled"?

dizzy

Looking at cgoeditor's description of having family bring food, it does seem to be much more stark conditions than US. Except whatever that county in NEvada is where Arpaio (sp?) is sheriff and keeps inmates in tents outside with cold meals.

MoreMilesPlease

You can make a great Quantro with sid. Take a jar with a screw lid, put a cup or so of sid in, take an orange, tie a string around it and pierce it with toothpicks(leaving the toothpicks in), suspend the orange above the sid in the jar. Close the lid and wait for the orange oil to be extracted by the sid. After a week or two open, discard the orange, add sugar to taste. Voila!

You could get Juniper berries and we used to soak them for weeks in the sid.

Ahh the memories.

Funny, I stopped drinking my last year in Saudi. Decided that I had drunk enough for many years.

Sorry to digress, I'll stop posting about making bootleg booze. It's just that it was a major past-time and hobby for many people.