ANKARA: “Have a shot of tequila first, cheer up!” Shahriyar tells guests gathered at his luxury apartment in Tehran. His girlfriend, Shima, said they party every weekend. Despite the ban on alcohol and frequent police raids, drinking in Iran is widespread, especially among the wealthy. Because the country has no discotheques or nightclubs, it all takes place at home, behind closed doors.

Some of the alcohol is smuggled in, but many resourceful Iranians make their own.

“My friends and I routinely gather to stamp down on grapes in my bathtub,” said Hesam, a 28-year-old music teacher in Tehran.

Only members of religious minorities are allowed to brew, distill, ferment and drink discreetly in the privacy of their homes, and trade in liquor is forbidden.

Amin, a 35-year-old sports trainer, has turned his 50-square-metre yard into a vineyard and rigged up a crude apparatus in his dingy basement to make the spirit, which costs as little as 50 cents a litre.

Which all means if you aren’t inclined to make your own, wine, beer and moonshine are just a phone call away. “You don’t even need to leave the house,” said Reza, a computer engineer in Tehran. “Nasser, the brewer, will deliver it at your door.”

The availability of alcohol has caused alarm among the country’s leaders, many of whom accuse the West of plotting to lure Iranians away from pious religious observance. The number of police raids has declined since the pragmatic President Hassan Rouhani took office in August, but the ban on alcohol and severe punishments for producing and consuming it remain intact, for health as well as religious reasons.

And in fact alcohol abuse and alcohol poisoning are becoming real problems. There are as many as 200,000 alcoholics in Iran, according to Iranian media reports. Last September, a permit was quietly issued for the country’s first alcohol rehabilitation centre in Tehran. “The centre was set up in Tehran to help our citizens. You cannot resolve the problem by ignoring it,” a health ministry official said.

Home-brewed drinks can cause blindness and even death. Iranian media often carry reports of deaths caused by alcohol, or “mashroob”. Last year Iranian health officials warned the government over the increasing number of “victims of home-made alcohol”, calling on the government to take action.

Industrial alcohol is available in supermarkets, purportedly for use in manufacturing but widely consumed. The other big business around alcohol is smuggling. The Iranian judiciary has accused border officials of complicity in the contraband trade. The Revolutionary Guards, who are in charge of controlling the borders, are widely believed to have a monopoly on the activity, securing a profit of around $12 billion annually, according to opposition websites.

Brand names smuggled in from neighbouring Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan sell for as much as $70 a bottle. A can of beer is just under $8 a can and bottles of tequila and French brandy are easy to find on the black market for $100. Russian and Georgian vodka finds its way through the rugged Caucasus, across Central Asia’s deserts and the Caspian Sea.

Back in Tehran, at the apartment owned by his wealthy businessman father, Shahriyar says his alcohol-fuelled parties allow his circle to get around the social restrictions imposed by the Islamic establishment. “By drinking we forget about our problems,” he said. “Otherwise we will go crazy with all the limitations on young people in Iran.”—Reuters