It’s unlikely that booze is the first thing that pops into your head when you think of Moroccan dining, but perhaps it should be. We recently spent time with Mazagan General Manager Reda Bouizar. He runs the beverage program at the fairly new Moroccan restaurant that abuts the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. He says drinking in Morocco has a hybrid status. “Marrakesh is a very extravagant party town with bars everywhere.” There’s still the religious bind that says you cannot drink, but Reda says drinking and being a devout Muslim are no longer mutually exclusive. “I sit with my father and have a nice glass of wine; things have changed.”
Fez on the other hand is the spiritual and historical heartbeat of the country and it remains very conservative. While alcohol is consumed far less, that’s where the country’s wine is grown, creating a curious situation. Mazagan has two Moroccan wines available by the bottle, an un-oaked Chardonnay and a Cabernet Merlot blend from Domaine Ouled Thaleb. “The wine is very good—the vines are French clones, winemakers use French processes and the climate is Mediterranean,” Reda tells us. His next project is to bring in Mahia, a fig brandy. It’s actually produced domestically in New York by a Jewish-Moroccan family. Moroccan mixologist Taha Ismail, who leads the drink program for Mike Isabella’s restaurants, is already serving it in DC (at Kapnos).
