One of my favourite wines is Chateau Musar, a rich, earthy red that has been produced in Lebanon for the past 90 years from grapes grown in the Bekaa Valley. Wine production in that region is far, far older, however. In fact, drinking alcoholic beverages such as wine, beer and aniseed-flavoured araq in the Middle East dates back thousands of years. Joseph El-Asmar’s The Milk of Lions (Gilgamesh, £19.95) provides an informative and entertaining overview of the traditions of alcohol in the region, focussing not only on the types of drink and their manufacture but also the social context and literary celebrations of drinking. Although an architect by profession, Mr El-Asmar has dedicated his mellow years to perfecting the production of araq from grapes from his vineyard in the south of Lebanon. Both the production and consumption of alcoholic drinks are dominated by Christians in the region, especially since the spread of a more conservative, Saudi-backed interpretation of Islam has strengthened the prohibition among Muslims. Actually, as Joseph El-Asmar points out, the Koranic prohibition is specifically against praying when intoxicated, though abstinence is the best way of avoiding that situation.
In both Judaism and Christianity, in contrast, wine has a central function in certain religious ceremonies, as was the case in various pre-Islamic pagan faiths. Far from dulling the brain alcohol can actually heighten spiritual awareness, or so some people believe. Nonetheless, most of this book is about the pleasure of drinking as a social activity (typically accompanied by mezze in Lebanon) and as a means of escapism from the cares of everyday life. In Arabic and Persian literature, drinking is often accompanied by more sensual pleasures, the beauty of the servers as delightful as the beverage. As one might expect, Omar Khayyam and the Sufi poet Ibn al-Farid feature among the writers extolling the virtues of drink’s effect on one’s mood. Less expected, perhaps, is Gibran Khalil Gibran, author of The Prophet. Or the overt hedonism of Iraqi Walibah ibn al-Hubab, who declared bluntly: “What is the use of drinking without debauchery… followed by adultery and sodomy!” There are a number of lines of poetry that one would like to refer to periodically, though the lack of an index makes relocating them less easy. The book also contains a heterodox series of colour illustrations, from the sacred to profane, making it an attractive present to proffer a friend who also shares an affection for the demon drink.
Jonathan Fryer 