“Eat drink and be Murree”

"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,” notes a report in The Indian Express of February 5, 2007. "As a Parsi, the Shariat law against alcohol does not apply to him.” An Oxford graduate, Bhandara was in Delhi for an Indo-Pakistan Oxbridge social gathering, noted the report.

"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,’” states the Express.

Minoo Bhan­­dara: "10 per­-cent growth”

Originally started for British troops Murree Breweries was purchased by Bhandara’s father in 1947. "‘We have a 10 percent growth every year,’ says Bhandara, ‘Sales of our classic beer, a lager, rose to 12 percent. 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.’

"‘The maulvis have always banned everything pleasurable,’ he says, puffing at his Monte Christo. Bhan­da­ra blames former Prime Minister Zulfiker Bhutto for imposing Islamic injunctions against alcohol. "He was riding a tiger by playing with the mullahs. However, it did not pay off. He was hanged five months later.”

Gen Zia ul Haq continued the same policy making it even more stringent during the Afghan war.

"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,” notes the report.

So how does the liquor business fare in a country where drinking is not permitted? "Pakistan is very much like India in the old days, everyone looks the other way,” he says.