Spirited sales

"Making beer and whiskey in a Muslim country where 97 percent of the population is officially banned from enjoying your products, has never been an easy business,” notes a write-up by Andrew Buncombe in The Independent of November 5, 2009 referring to the challenges faced by the late Minoo Bhandara and his son Isphanyar of Murree Brewery Company Limited, Pakistan’s only beer and whiskey producing firm.

"Sales are good but we don’t want to shout about it because that also brings negative publicity and criticism... (in) a Muslim country,” Isphanyar, the Brewery’s 36-year-old chief executive was quoted in The Independent. With a 20 percent increase in beer sales year-on-year the company provides the state and federal authorities with around one million dollars a month in taxes and duty. But neither are they allowed to advertise their products nor are they permitted to export them for the Islamic Ideology Council of Pakistan believes that export of alcohol would damage the country’s international image.

Minoo (left) and Isphanyar Bhan-dara: operating in a Muslim milieu

"Absurd as it sounds, it’s true,” confirmed Isphanyar who was hoping to convince the government to permit him to export beer to Britain where it would be marketed with the catchphrase "Have a Murree with your curry.”

Despite the ban, "few private social gatherings among the country’s political or business elite take place without the lubrication of liquor... There is a private acknowledgement that the overwhelming majority of drinkers are Muslims who work their way through the easily exploited permit system,” states Buncombe.

Non-Muslims and foreigners can acquire an official permit that allows them to buy 30 bottles of beer or a quart of spirits every month. However, some five star hotels require foreigners to give a written undertaking before they order a drink that they are non-Muslims and will be responsible for anything that happens under the influence of alcohol.

Operating in a society where a two-faced attitude towards alcohol prevails, liquor bottles may change hands surreptitiously, but shares of Murree Brewery are publicly traded on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi. The Murree Brewery, according to its website, is one of the oldest public companies of the sub-continent. Its shares were traded on the Calcutta Stock Exchange as early as 1902, and it is now the oldest continuing industrial enterprise of Pakistan. Established in 1860 on the Murree Hills, 20 miles north of Islamabad, they started by producing light beer for British colonial troops. Growing demand for their products led them to establish additional breweries in Quetta in 1886 and in Rawalpindi in 1889, the site of the current location lying opposite the residence of the Chief of the Army Staff.

While the liquor division of the company produces beers, non-alcoholic beers, maturated malt whiskies, liquors like vodka, brandy, gin and rum, lemonades and energy drinks, under the Tops Food and Beverages division established in 1969 they produce fruit juices, fruit squashes, conserves, vinegar, tomato ketchup and malt extract. Yet another division, Murree Glass, established in 1975, is dedicated to the manufacture of quality glass containers.