# The Wet And The Dry

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- Book: [The Wet And The Dry](https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-wet-and-the-dry) ([The Wet And The Dry.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-wet-and-the-dry.md))
- Authors: [Lawrence Osborne](https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne)
- Publisher: Harvill Secker
- ISBN: 978-18-4655-462-9
- Pages: 256
- Published: 2013-02-07
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

‘I am taking a few months off to travel and wander, drinking my way across the Islamic world to see whether I can dry myself out, cure myself of a bout of alcoholic excess. It is a personal crisis, a private curiosity… I am curious to see how non-drinkers live. Perhaps they have something to teach me.’ Booze is mankind's premier drug of choice, the most popular mind-altering substance ever devised, and it plays a furtive, celebrated and subversive role in nearly every culture on earth. In The Wet and the Dry , Lawrence Osborne explores the culture of permission, particularly in the West, and the opposing culture of prohibition, notably in the Islamic East. Osborne’s globe-trotting odyssey takes him from the luxurious bars of Milan to the vineyards of Lebanon, threatened by Hezbollah; from Swedish vodka to Pakistani strawberry gin; from the Nellie Dean pub in Soho to the dangerous brothels and drinking dens on the Malaysian border; from the boutique scotch produced on Islay to the liquor destroying Native American reservations; and from the only brewery in the dry country of Pakistan to the search for a bottle of New Year’s champagne in Oman. All the while, Osborne’s own Irish family history of terrifying alcoholism fails to deter him from seeking out a drink wherever he can.