"It's not really about alcohol, you know"
This paper is about the role that alcohol consumption plays in the (re)definition of Turkishness at a time where the secular foundations of the country are being challenged by the religious-conservative Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP). We see how alcohol consumption shed its marginal position in the middle of the 19th century, being elevated to the status of drink of the elites, how this in turn