DISTILLING WHISKY IN PAKISTAN!

An almost 150-year-old brewery in Pakistan is preparing to bring the Muslim world’s first 20-year-old single malt whisky to the market. Murree Brewery, however, can only sell to non-Muslims, who comprise 3 percent of Pakistan’s population. The 150-year-old Murree Brewery is teeming with activity. One of the Islamic world’s most successful breweries will soon launch a rare, one-off product of its distillery: a 20-year-old single malt whisky that is the first of its kind in the Muslim world. Chuckles brewery owner Minoo Bhandara, a Zoroastrian, insists that the existence of a brewery in a country where the 97-percent Muslim majority is barred from drinking alcohol is not some freak occurrence: "It merely reflects an age-old tolerance which the West is ignorant about." Murree Brewery was founded in 1860 by relatives of the British mountaineer Edward Whymper. This is one of the country’s three breweries, the others are located in Quetta and Karachi. Muslims are allowed to hold shares in the company, which is listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange. In the late 1990s, it twice listed as one of the country’s 25 top performing stocks.