Our new chocolate brochure now lists allergies and booze content.
We are surprised at the amount of seemingly innocuous chocolates that have booze in them. They don’t taste of booze at all and mums happily buy them for their kids. In the ingredient list it last in line. l have spoken to the chocolate people and they say that even if they have 1% booze in them or have had alcohol used as a setting agent they will flag them up.
Is there a definite line in the sand for muslims ? From what I’ve read it’s not booze per se but intoxicants.
Is non intoxicating booze ok?

Bit of a grey area – I know a few folk who say the literal interpretation of the texts says not to come to worship drunk and are quite happy to go & get blazing on occasion, others won’t even touch a glass with alcohol in it. Quite a few Indian / Pakistani / Bangladeshi restaurants don’t have licences & won’t charge corkage if you bring your own as they don’t want to profit from the selling of it…

happy to clear that up 😆

All down to interpretation.

Lots of natural things with sugars will ferment slightly thus have a small amount of alcohol present, like orange juice.

Insha Allah surely?

Anyone will have their own interptation and if it extends to trace amounts in food – which you’d get in chocs and cakes and anything with vinegar in it for instance, then they’ll already shop accordingly. But if quantities are so low as to not be on the label then I doubt most people would care.

Would be interesting to see what your brochure says about coke. The ‘secret’ recipe I saw for making your own home brew coke syrup involve a surprising amount of vodka!

Depends on the person, as above some will drink except before prayers, others won’t even touch food that’s been made with alcohol even if it’s been cooked (i.e. ethanol is long gone just the fussel/boozy taste remains).

I did bring up the question of bread with someone on here, there’s no significant difference between bread yeast and brewing yeast, and therefore between bread and say a cake cooked with alcohol (in both the alcohol is removed by cooking). Which drills into the point that it’s down to their interpretation.

There’s also a distinction between intoxicants and stimulants e.g. khat, which is very definitely a drug, but is widely used in some cultures as an aid to prayer.

Would be interesting to see what your brochure says about coke. The ‘secret’ recipe I saw for making your own home brew coke syrup involve a surprising amount of vodka!

‘Open cola’ can use it as a solvent, but it’s not required if you make cola rather than syrup for dilution. The other factor is that the homebrew method is to make the syrup, then make soda water (water + sugar + yeast = fizzy alcoholic water) which is about 0.1% alcohol, then mix them together (you can’t ferment flat cola as it’s too acidic).

Meh what they won’t know won’t hurt them.
Slip a bit of bacon rind in for good measure. 😉

Bacon chocolate mmmmmm.

Depends on the individual really. One Muslim friend is quite strict and is completely against consuming alcohol or anything with the possibility of alcohol in (plus a lot more other food issues as she’s vegan, and got the non wheat thing too 😐 ), but another mate is OK with a glass of wine / beer but generally stops when tipsy (he says “Allah is forgiving!” when he starts on his second / third drink).

So yes (or no) 🙂

Bacon chocolate mmmmmm.

You know it makes sense.

When I worked in our Istanbul office, the lead there used to love to take us out for lunch so he could have a beer to be hospitable 🙂

Seems like a good percent of the practicing young male Muslims around our town spend most of their time smoking, selling and even growing skunk so I reckon the “intoxicants ” element is is reserved mainly for alcohol.

Is non intoxicating booze ok?

What’s that?

To answer your question, an observant Muslim would never knowingly eat a chocolate that had any alcohol at all in it.

Of course not all Muslims are strictly observant but, let’s just say, your sales of your boozy chocolates will be a bit slow in Bradford.

A strict Muslim friend of mine was once upset because she ate a mince pie not realising it had suet in it(containing non-halal meat product).

She went to see the mullah down at the Mosque. He said “happens all the time – don’t worry about it”.

slowoldman – Member
Is non intoxicating booze ok?

What’s that?

It’s what happens to booze which has passed the event horizon of a black hole.

HTH.

Is non intoxicating booze ok?

again depends on the person, some will drink beer, some won’t touch Bass shandy.

Vanilla is also bad apparently but we never get asked about that.

98% of Turkey’ population are muslims and the national drink is Raki.

They don’t drink unless they are ‘casuals’. zero tolerance

Total ban I say, I mean there’s hardly enough to go around as it is.

others won’t even touch food that’s been made with alcohol even if it’s been cooked (i.e. ethanol is long gone just the fussel/boozy taste remains).

Utter rubbish! Ethanol doesn’t magically vaporise at the first sign of heat, about half of the alcohol is still there after a 20min simmer.

With regard to OP, maybe quantification would help. “Contains alcohol” has different connotations to ” contains less than 0.01% alcohol”.

UK based muslims eat cereals and veg grown on fields sprayed with pig slurry so they’re all destined for hell fire. Shit happens, literally.

Another little story I’m fond of repeating: I once sat on a plane beside a senior Scottish gentleman who turned out to be the export director for a well-known whisky blender. We got chatting and I asked him: “So go on then…. where’s your biggest export market?” He smiled and replied: “You already know the answer!” Me: “Saudi Arabia?” He: “Yup!”

But that says more about the disgusting hypocrisy of the Saudis than about Muslims and alcohol.

In Islam the legal stance is a total ban on intoxicants. Some extend that to smoking too. When it comes to good if it has been added in then it’s no no too. Total nightmare for people like me as you find it in pasta and chocolate. Lots food flavourings use alocohol to extract too and is a total pain. The rule is consumption knowingly. When it comes to ripe foods it’s reasonableness.