Drinking Traditions of Libya: 6 Beverages Behind Closed Doors

Alcohol has been illegal nationwide for decades, so drinking happens—if at all—out of public view. Yet Libya’s geography still shapes what people quietly produce: Mediterranean hills that once hosted vineyards and Saharan oases rich in dates and figs.

Most consumption occurs in private homes or small circles, drawing on older habits from colonial times, cross-border trade, and oasis agriculture. The result is a discreet repertoire of wine, date-based ferments, and strong spirits with distinctly North African notes.

Libya’s most traceable wine tradition sits in the eastern Green Mountain (Jabal al Akhdar), a Mediterranean microclimate east of Benghazi. During Italian rule in the early 20th century, settlers planted vineyards and bottled light, rustic wines for local consumption. The ban ended commercial production, but a quiet home-winemaking thread persists, especially when table grapes flood markets around Benghazi and Al Bayda.

Ingredients are simple: locally sold table grapes, sugar (if needed to chaptalize), and baker’s or wine yeast. Fermented on skins, the resulting reds and rosés tend to be pale, lightly tannic, and sometimes oxidized; whites are floral but fragile. Alcohol typically ranges from 10–13% ABV. Bottles are stored in unobtrusive cellars or cupboards and opened at small private gatherings—family meals or celebratory evenings—never in public. The style reflects the climate: sun-ripe fruit, modest acidity, and a straightforward, homemade character that echoes colonial-era methods without the infrastructure.

Bukar is a catch-all name locals use for clandestine spirits distilled from whatever ferments cheaply: sugar wash, leftover fruit (often dates or figs), or diluted commercial ethanol. Production commonly relies on improvised stills built from pressure cookers and copper tubing. Clear when fresh, bukar can range from 30–50% ABV, sometimes higher, with a volatile nose—solventy, fruity, occasionally sweet if unrefined congeners remain.

The risks are well documented: poorly controlled distillation can concentrate methanol and fusel oils, and Tripoli saw highly publicized methanol poisonings in 2013. When people do drink bukar, it’s usually in private apartments, backrooms, or farm outhouses, sipped neat, mixed with soda, or masked with citrus and anise seeds. The appeal is cost and availability; the flavor is secondary. Its cultural footprint is one of necessity rather than pride—an underground answer to prohibition in urban centers like Tripoli.

Fig eau-de-vie has long associations across the Maghreb, especially with Tunisia’s boukha. In Tripolitania, where fig cultivation extends into Amazigh and Arab farming belts near the Tunisian border, families historically familiar with the style sometimes distilled a similar clear spirit from dried figs. The mash is soaked, lightly sugared if needed, fermented, and distilled on a small alembic; some households add a fennel or anise note.

Expect an aromatic, gently sweet nose—dried fig, date cake, faint spice—and a clean, warming palate at 35–45% ABV. Before the ban, Jewish and merchant communities in Tripoli often knew boukha through trade or diaspora ties; at that time it could appear at lifecycle celebrations. Today any fig spirit in Libya is strictly private, occasionally poured with nuts and dried fruit in living rooms. While the name boukha belongs to Tunisia, the flavor profile—sun-dried figs, desert warmth—makes sense in western Libya’s orchards and markets around Zuwara and Tripoli.

Arak across the Levant is grape-based and redistilled with anise; in Libya’s clandestine context, dates often replace grapes in the base wash. Makers ferment crushed or chopped dates (or date syrup) with yeast, distill a neutral-ish spirit, then run a second distillation with star anise or aniseed. The result is a louche-forming, anise-forward drink akin to arak or ouzo, usually 40–55% ABV.

The aroma is classic anise—licorice, fennel pollen—with a desert twist: hints of caramelized date, resin, and spice. Drinkers typically dilute it with cold water, which clouds the glass, and add ice. Historically, Benghazi and coastal towns had access to imported anisette and arak during the Italian and early postwar years; after prohibition, homemade versions filled the gap for those who sought the flavor. It appears at small house gatherings or on farms after sunset, especially during cooler months when strong, aromatic spirits feel restorative.

Lagmi is the fresh sap of date palms known across southern Tunisia; in western Libya’s borderlands and oasis communities, the term and practice are familiar, though controversial because tapping can harm trees. Harvesters collect sap at dawn; within hours, natural yeasts begin fermenting it into a lightly fizzy, tart drink of 1–4% ABV. Left longer, it becomes more sour and alcoholic, edging into what visitors call palm wine.

Flavor shifts rapidly: from coconut-water sweetness to lactic tang, with a faint date blossom aroma. In Libya this is not a mainstream beverage and is discouraged, but in some rural pockets near Zuwara and the Nafusa foothills—or farther south en route to Ghadames—people have known and occasionally tasted it, often very fresh and cold. It is consumed discreetly, usually by those working palms, and almost never kept overnight because the fermentation gallops in desert heat.

Nabidh is a historical Arabic term for fermented date- or raisin-based drinks documented across the region for centuries. In a Libyan setting, the most plausible modern echo is a simple, clandestine country wine—dates or raisins soaked in water, sometimes with a little sugar, fermented with ambient or baker’s yeast, and racked off the fruit. Without temperature control, it’s rustic, amber to brown in color, and typically 8–12% ABV.

The nose shows molasses, dried fruit, and faint spice; the palate is soft, mildly tannic from skins, and slightly oxidative. It’s the kind of beverage a resourceful home producer might make when grapes are unavailable but date syrup (dibs) is plentiful in markets. Drunk in small glasses at private meals in cities such as Tripoli, it straddles history and improvisation—less a proud appellation than a practical method inherited from broader Maghrebi and Arab traditions and adapted to the desert pantry.