Cool Sweat

Every once in a while you read about a liquor called arrack, which gets its name from the Arabic word for “sweat” because of the way alcohol condenses in the cooling pipe of a still. Medieval Italy apparently came up with the idea of distilling alcohol, but the Arabs swiftly introduced it to Asia.

In modern Lebanon, ‘araq is distilled from grape wine and flavored with anise, just like several other Mediterranean drinks (anisette, ouzo, Pernod). Like them, it turns milky if you pour a little water into it. The white color comes from minuscule droplets of aromatic anise oil, which appear because the added water means there’s no longer a high enough concentration of alcohol to keep the oil dissolved.

But you can distill any alcoholic beverage, so there are lots of other arracks, mostly unflavored. Egyptian ‘araq comes from dates. In Indonesia, a rum called Batavia arrack is made from sugar cane. In Indonesia, and India too, arrack is also distilled from palm sap or rice.

The Mongols went wild for araqi in the Middle Ages and spread the idea of distillation far and wide, though not necessarily the idea of distilling fermented horse milk, which was what the Mongols used. As a result, there are two arrack belts: the southern one, from the Mediterranean through Iran and India to Southeast Asia, where the name is more or less ‘araq, and the Central Asian and Siberian belt, where people use the Mongolian form of the name, araqi.

A worn-down Mongolian form is used in Turkey, but the Turkish raki has come full circle back to the Mediterranean way of doing of things, complete with anise flavoring. There’s not a drop of milk in it, though it does turn white when you add water.