Firsthand reports from contributors inside Iran
Buying, selling, and drinking alcohol in Iran is illegal and still risky. But over the years, something has shifted. Whispers spread: some restaurants let customers bring their own drinks. Then, a few began serving alcohol under code names.
In the days after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, a friend invited me to a café in Tehran that served beer—to toast, quietly and discreetly, the temporary end of the war.
Alcohol—in all its glorious manifestations—is illegal in Iran.
Possession, production or consumption can lead to lashes, prison, or worse. I know people who’ve been jailed and whipped for drinking. Repeat offenses can even carry the death penalty.
You’ve probably seen the footage from 1979: bottles smashed, bars destroyed, liquor shops ransacked. Alcohol was among the first things banned after the revolution.
But resistance emerged just as quickly. People began brewing at home, drinking at private gatherings, and soon, bootleggers (saaghis) entered the scene.
Everything operated in the shadows. You needed someone to vouch for you before a saaghi would respond. Some even brought a woman or child to make deliveries and avoid suspicion.
Fighting for normalcy
Buying and selling alcohol remains risky. But over the years, something has shifted. Whispers spread: some restaurants let customers bring their own drinks. Then, a few began serving alcohol—beer, even hard liquor—under code names.
I remember a beach café in northern Iran where a friend’s father ordered a drink, and it arrived in a teapot. Prices in such places were several times higher than what a saaghi would charge—an expensive luxury for those willing to pay.
These stories, told with a mix of disbelief and delight, hinted at a fragile but growing defiance—more personal than political, but nonetheless contributing to the erosion of state authority. And all of it unfolds while Iran lurches from war scare to daily shortages—power, water, gas, inflation—yet people keep finding ways to live.
Some people I know have started brewing their own beer and wine, selling only to trusted clients.
Where once reused water bottles or non-alcoholic beer containers disguised the contents, now the products come in elegant bottles with custom-designed labels and clever brand names.
“It’s a response to years of longing,” my friend Saeed says.
“We wanted to drink respectfully and freely, like people anywhere else in the world—not like citizens whose government decides even their food and drink. Not in fear, not in shame, not in secrecy.”
Don’t clink!
Another friend, Babak, brews beer on the side. He sees it as an act of civil resistance.“I’ve learned that freedom isn’t something you ask for—it’s something you live,” he says.
In the café, my friend gave me a few ground rules before we ordered: don’t clink glasses, don’t approach the waiters—let them come to you.When one did, he told us we could order stronger liquor too, but if anyone suspicious showed up, service would stop.
Most tables had the same opaque glasses, supposedly filled with “non-alcoholic” beer. Prices were surprisingly fair—it didn’t feel exploitative.
It was a new kind of experience, unlike anything I’d known before in Iran. But it’s no longer an isolated incident—it’s part of a quiet, growing rebellion.
Unnecessary jeopardy
Even Fars News—an outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards—reported on the phenomenon a few weeks ago.
“Field investigations by Fars reporters show that in luxury restaurants, a ‘secret menu’ is only revealed to select customers—either verbally or via WhatsApp with coded language,” the outlet reported, calling for stricter enforcement.
But such calls ignore the elephant in the room: if it hasn’t worked for nearly half a century, it’s unlikely to work now.
And there’s the darker side of the story.
Underground, substandard production blinds and kills hundreds each year. More than 200 died from alcohol poisoning in the first five months of last year alone, according to health officials.
Like so many bans in Iran, the prohibition on alcohol hasn’t suppressed the desire—it’s only made it more dangerous, more defiant and more alive.
