For some the image of Saudi Arabia may be one of foreboding, where Western culture clashes with strict Islamic law, and to some degree that is true. And yet despite the rules and regulations there was life there. As Roger was so fond of saying, rules were meant to be broken, and nowhere was it more obvious than in the mix of compromise and discretion of Saudi Arabia.
Sidiki – booze – seemed to flow from all directions, and some was really pretty good. Most, however, was run maybe once halfway with care through a still, and that stuff would give you the most terrible hangover you can imagine. Looking back I’m surprised worse didn’t happen.
I suppose that was why I invested in a still with another fellow. We kept it at our house and ran it in the “utility” room that seemed to be purpose made for the thing. Our son Roger did most of the work. He’d say that he needed sugar and yeast and whatnot and Helene would run him up to the commissary with the hopes of getting her own grocery shopping done. Of course with several 50Kg bags of sugar in the trunk there was little room for much else. He’d mix this with “raw” water in huge plastic trash barrels, let it sit for a week or so, after which time it was ready for the still.
Roger produced something beyond mere Sidiki. With great care and attention, he would run the mash through five times. From fifty or so gallons of mash we might ultimately yield five gallons of smooth, five-star Saudka. Never once did we sell even a drop. We could have and made a lot of money the way others were selling their onerun stuff, but we didn’t. We gave ours away and were happy to do so.
Of course running a still was not entirely safe. The workers could turn off the water at any time without any notice. That happened to a house on the next street over across from us. Rumor was the wife was in the house at the time and got severely hurt in the explosion. The husband sued the company, etc. Supposedly he won the case and still had his job at the time I was leaving. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that was the rumor at the time.
Wine there was pretty decent mostly. Helene couldn’t resist getting in on the act and eventually concocted what she called “jungle juice” which is really a catch-all term and generally described just about anything put in a bucket to ferment. But her “juice” was quite remarkable, delicious actually.
Even our son Paul, who was barely thirteen at the time, took an interest though it was quite obvious his knowledge was limited to the generalities. Some lessons are best learned on one’s own, so when Paul declared his first batch ready after three days of fermenting using a plastic bag and rubber band in lieu of an airlock, I said nothing. I thought he would have stopped at the first taste, but I guess he was more excited about the idea of drinking wine, and wine that he made by himself, that the taste and cloudiness and froth of fermentation still in progress didn’t even slow him down. Not after one, two, three full tin cups of the stuff. Why he settled on a tin cup or where it came from I’ve no idea – definitely not the correct way to drink.
Surprisingly, the after effects of this misadventure were short lived and soon forgotten. Indeed, just a couple of years later Paul had the wine making down to near science and, at one point, had several different varieties all going at once. Every time Paul was home from school there was wine being made in the house. That was fine until I had to leave on business – the house would be empty and so vulnerable to inspection from the security police (the rumor was that they came in at such times looking for contraband).
This particular time, Paul was already back at school a week or so before and I was just getting ready to leave the house when I suddenly thought I’d better make sure the house was clear of anything incriminating. So here I was all dressed to go to the airport to catch this flight to who knows where now, and I open the cabinet door under the kitchen sink. There were six bottles of wine, all red, that Paul had sealed just before he left. I thought, “Oh my word, I’ve got to get rid of this!”
The first five went down the drain without incident. I was not so fortunate with the sixth. As soon as I released the top (it was a grape-juice bottle with a Grolsch type cap) wine sprayed everywhere. It was on the ceiling. It was on the floor. It was all over the walls. And it was all over me. I remember relating the story to Paul some time later. He said, “Man I wish I had been there!” to which I replied, “Man, you’re damned lucky you weren’t.”
There are many stories I can recall from those days. Rumors of some fellow being caught with a menorah – that was bad. Him being found “starring” in several risqué home movies – well, we never did hear if they found the young woman with the butterfly tattoo.