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2025-12-22 Arabia

Saudi Arabia quietly expanding access to its only alcohol store for non-Muslim residents

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Posted by trailing wife 2025-12-22 2025-12-22 02:24|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1810 views ] Top
File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia

1 Progress!!!!

Posted by Grom the Affective 2025-12-22 03:54|| 2025-12-22 03:54|| Front Page Top

2 The manual called "The Blue Flame" was issued in Dhahran back in the late 50's early 60's. (It might still be available for downloading at the Library of Congress). Aramco issued all stainless stills to a few employees for just 100 Riyals way back when...., rather than have each of us try to weld their own and have them blow up on the kitchen stove due to poor welding that leaked ethanol over time. 172 was the "key" number. 4 runs made excellent white. Never drank single or 2 run junk. Brown was made by soaking white in oak chips. Brown and coke was the main drink in Dhahran, RT, Abqaiq and Udhaliyah. My still was an original 1958 one with full copper coils on a 5 ft tower. RT stainless from the refinery. Kept it going for over 35 years in Dhahran. Old Bill Owen (long gone now) was the lawyer that wrote up the laws for alcohol in the Kingdom. The strategy was, that a person could do essentially just 4 things with White: Make it, transport it, sell it and consume it. So the laws were tactically written to simply just prohibit transporting it and selling it. Thus Aramcon's could legally make it and consume it all those decades in their homes with friends. Even today. Those days in the oil field were truly terrific. Every year was like 1959, up until the early 90's. Untouched and unknown from the rest of the world. I was fortunate to be the last American Aramcon hired while it was totally American owned, Aramco, before it turned into Saudi Aramco. It really was like being in the last colonial outpost. Those days are now over, unfortunately.... It was good while it lasted.

Posted by Spike McCoy4962 2025-12-22 10:07|| 2025-12-22 10:07|| Front Page Top

3 Amazing story! Is there another ARAMCOn on here? My experience in Dhahran in the late 60s was that many homes had a still in the house - after all, those Petroleum Engineers know a bit about creating distillation columns.

I never heard of that book, but I will look it up.

Posted by 58ARAMCOBrat 2025-12-22 10:56|| 2025-12-22 10:56|| Front Page Top

4 Aramco drawing No: 1 is of the standard still approved by Dhahran. I'd say approved by Aramco, but that's not legally correct. I just tried to post a part of the drawing. Hope it uploads correctly

Posted by Spike McCoy4962 2025-12-22 11:38|| 2025-12-22 11:38|| Front Page Top

5 I uploaded Aramco drawing 1 but it doesn't show up. It went to Rantburg that's all I know. Oh well..... Maybe somebody can locate it and post here.

Posted by Spike McCoy4962 2025-12-22 11:41|| 2025-12-22 11:41|| Front Page Top

6 Rantburg moderator PD.com was a computer programmer who had worked in Saudi Arabia for many years. Sadly, he died some years ago.

Posted by trailing wife 2025-12-22 11:43|| 2025-12-22 11:43|| Front Page Top

7 There were so many "spooky" operations in Aramco over the years it would make your head spin. Here an article on one of them that was totally true. Many of the explosives were kept for a short while in the lower basement floors of the company's hospital for reason that have to be explained here at a later time. Not now. Search using the terms: "Aramco War Plan to Keep Soviet Hands Off". There were dozens of similar activities over the years.

Posted by Spike McCoy4962 2025-12-22 12:05|| 2025-12-22 12:05|| Front Page Top

8 I don’t know how to find your image, Spike McCoy4962, but here is a link to a blog post on the thing with a few excerpts. Link.

To post the link above, I copied the URL, gave it a word in the comment, selected the word, clicked on the little globe-on-chain-links icon below the comment box, selected the placeholder http://in the pop up window, pasted the URL over it, then clicked OK.

If you wanted to post the image as an image in your comment, someone else will have to explain that — I have no idea. I can post things from Fred’s prepared image selection, but that’s just point and click stuff.

Posted by trailing wife 2025-12-22 12:58|| 2025-12-22 12:58|| Front Page Top

9 Thanks TW for the help

Posted by Spike McCoy4962 2025-12-22 13:23|| 2025-12-22 13:23|| Front Page Top

10 :-)

Posted by trailing wife 2025-12-22 19:19|| 2025-12-22 19:19|| Front Page Top

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