DOHA — The Mulberry Tavern is tucked away inside a five-star hotel off a side road in Qatar's most exclusive district. Technically, it serves a country whose religion prohibits alcohol, but its menu lists over 100 alcoholic drinks. Its servers hustle $15 draft beers, $23 cocktails and $113 bottles of wine to tables adorned with the flags of World Cup participants. And, with Western music humming and kickoff approaching, it is bracing itself.
, which requires a permit, Qatari citizenship, employer permission, social status and the braving of long lines.
He quickly realized that the fears, inflamed in part by incredulous tabloids, were overblown. Qatari authorities grant alcohol licenses to hotels — which, in general, act as safe havens from Qatar’s most conservative laws. They’re where people go to have pre-marital sex and, most prominently, to drink.
The one he initially built was very incomplete, with roughly a dozen hotels and a few establishments. Then some fellow members of U.S. soccer’s largest supporters group, the American Outlaws, began chiming in with recommendations. He estimates that he's spent more than 100 hours curating it. He turned it into a spreadsheet too. He didn't aggressively promote it — thehe made has just 79 followers — and he doesn't quite know how it circulated internationally. But he now gets messages from people around the world thanking him.
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