Sean Rocha

The Green Man Ferro China bottle: Cairo, Egypt, 1994

This bottle of alcohol was purchased from a Greek-run shop in downtown Cairo in 1998, before economic liberalization led to the wide availability of international alcohol brands.  In somewhat idiosyncratic French, the label begins “cette china estune boisson dun goutexquise. c’est un excellent aperitif un tonique excellent aperitif un tonique reconstituant…”  It was brewed and bottled by Samios Cairo, the name merely a vestige of a Greek-owned distiller that was appropriated by the Egyptian government in the 1960s; in fact, it was produced by Egyptian Vineyards Co.  By reputation, it is essentially undrinkable.  It is worth noting that after twelve years there has been practically no evaporation of the contents in the sealed bottle.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 6th, 2011 at 8:17 am. It is filed under Found Object and tagged with alcohol, Cairo, Egypt, Middle East. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.