On the outskirts of the city Bethlehem cellar, distiller Nader Muaddi made fewer than 500 bottles of his liquor last year. The 35-year-old illustrates the handcrafted way he makes Arak, an anise-flavored drink popular in the Middle East and similar to Greek Ouzo, French Pastis or Italian Sambuca.
This year, for the first time, he entered his Arak Muaddi in three prestigious competitions, going up against hundreds of others from across the globe.
In the Palestinian territories, where Christians now constitute only a tiny percentage of the population and non-observant Muslims are less common, the alcohol market is small.