Can you drink in Jordan? The short answer to this is that yes you can, but social acceptability and prices varies greatly across the Hashemite Kingdom.
And this is a similar situation with the nightlife of Jordan, with for example Petra and Aqaba being literally and figuratively miles apart.
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How Muslim is Jordan?
Percentage wise 92 percent of Jordanians are Muslim, mostly Sunni, while 8 percent are Christians. So, while Jordan is very much a Muslim state it is quite secular. This means that in parliament, which is subservient to the King some seats are reserved for Christians, with more still for women. All rather progressive. In fact there are elections coming up soon, something very evident when you travel here.
Because of this rules on things such as alcohol are more akin to how they are in Lebanon and are arguably more liberal, or at least less hypocritical than in the United Arab Emirates.
So, can you drink in Jordan and how does it work?
To drink in Jordan takes on many guises. In Amman for example there is a very cool bar scene and most hotels serve booze. It is though quite expensive with a Petra beer in our last hotel rolling out at $10. On this day I was teetotal.
Bars are similar although they at least have an atmosphere. My favorite bar in Amman, other than the Hilton where I ran for free is the Rovers Return baaed on the bar from Coronation Street from an English soap opera. I would later find that they also had a branch in the coastal town of Aqaba.
Being coastal town and indeed a party one the rules are different in Aqaba, which is here they also host the arms fair SOFEX. Here there are beach bars, clubs and pretty much every other variation of places too drink in Jordan. Aqaba is supposedly an SEZ too, which means things are technically cheaper although I personally did not see much of this.
Drinking in other places vary with the Dead Sea Resorts being very much for drinkers, while Petra is all but dry. Although with that being said I did manage a Petra beer in Petra, yes I am easily pleased.
Having a drink in Jordan and the liquor stores
For bang for your buck though and much like in Kurdistan the place to buy booze in the liquor stores which are crazy cheap and plentiful in the right places. And the joy here is that much of it is home brewed in Jordan. And this is where the Christians come in. Christians are the ones allowed to make and sell booze, with that joke being that they do it for the Muslims. Of course I have no comment on this.
And their range of booze is insane, with merely vodka having huge amounts of variants that include the bottom end costing as little as ten bucks for a liter. They also have one of my Damascus favorites, namely Arak which again literally costs pennies to buy.
It is tough in the alcopop arena where for me they come up trumps. For $4 you can get a 275 ml bottle of a flavored vodka called Fox which is bat shit crazy 30% a bottle. Unlike ID at 20% in Egypt even I could not neck this in one go. Actually I am sure that I could, but the after affects would not ne too pretty.
So, can you drink in Jordan? Well it might not be no Ibiza, but as drinking in Arabia goes, it is way the hell up there.