It was an astonishing booty to bring from Pakistan — three litres of the choicest local 12-year-old malt whisky, quaffed down with pleasure by friends in Delhi.But then the cigar-puffing, urbane Minoo Bhandara, 67, is the only person in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan who owns a licensed brewery to produce whisky, gin, vodka, and the famous Murree beer. As a Parsi, the Shariat law against alcohol does not apply to him.Bhandara, an Oxford man, is here as part of an Indo-Pakistan Oxbridge social gathering.He’s as audacious as the slogan that sells his beer — ‘Eat, drink and be Murree!’ — and sums up the drinking scene in his country saying, “Women in Pakistan drink more than the men. They’re going wild, these single millionaire ladies, who’ve dumped their husbands, run successful export businesses — mostly lingerie — but conceal their double vodkas in orange juice.”The fortunes of Murree Breweries, originally set up for British troops and bought by his father in 1947, have lurched stormily with Pakistani politics.“The maulvis have always banned everything pleasurable,” he says, puffing at his Monte Christo. “But it was Zulfi (Bhutto) who brought these Islamic injunctions to save his empire. He was riding a tiger by playing with the mullahs. However, it did not pay off. He was hanged five months later.”But the Bhutto legacy carried on with Gen Zia ul Haq, and prohibition became even more stringent because of the Afghan War, he says. “Just like present-day Pakistan, the political class split in the middle in Afghanistan after the Soviet tanks rolled in, left liberals rightly wanted to back off from taking them on, but right-wingers backed by the US said we must support our brethren. Zia felt some sort of obligation to the right and decided to make prohibition more tough,” he said. “The worst part was not the booze ban but the hadood laws against women. Mercifully, General Musharraf’s regime has brought the Women’s Protection Bill, 2006, but it is more difficult to crack the iron-fisted blasphemy laws.”He has his own takes on Zia, whom he served as minister of minority affairs, and Musharraf: “Zia was not the monster he was. He was quite anxious the production of beer would not be interrupted when he sent me as a delegate to the UN. Musharaff is the most liberal ruler of Pakistan to date” the Press is freer, people feel freer.”And the most disastrous rulers his country has had? “Benazir and Nawaz Sharif. Benazir had the world at her feet but all she was interested was in society gossip and scandals,” he says, shrugging.How does his business fare in a country where drinking is outlawed?“Pakistan is very much like India in the old days, everyone looks the other way,” he says.The brewery has fared well all through Pakistan’s turbulent politics (except once when it was shut down for three months by Bhutto), notching up outrageous highs. “We have a 10 per cent growth every year,’’ says Bhandara, “Sales of our classic beer, a lager, rose to 12 per cent. Spirits and beer are available in five-star hotels for tourists, and at licensed outlets. The legal position is closed, but the door opens slightly in Punjab province. In Sindh it is wider, and in Baluchistan it is open.’Today, Murree Brewery is located next to the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, in an old-fashioned complex, a stone’s throw from Gen Pervez Musharraf’s palm-shaded house.Does Musharraf like his Scotch? Bhandara is not telling.
