Iraq

I used to think myths were just bedtime stories—until I read the tablets from Lagash, where Inanna rides a pair of lions like she’s late for a glam-rock sound-check. Turns out, the goddess of love and war never traveled light; she carried passion and danger in equal measure, same way a bartender carries bitters and sugar.

When I host my Alchemy After Dark pop-ups, I tell guests that lions still roam Baghdad’s collective memory. We may not hear their paws on the marble of Al-Mustansiriya University, but the roar lingers in street poetry and the way oud players strike that low, growling C-string. My cocktails? They shimmer ultraviolet—pomegranate, date molasses, a hint of dried lime—because a lioness deserves a drink that glows under blacklight.

Fun fact: in Akkadian, one of the words for lion is labbu, which also meant a fierce protector. My grandma called me binti labbu (daughter of the lion) whenever I got sassy about curfew. She said Baghdad needed more protectors who sparkle, not just soldiers with rifles. I took the hint: I protect flavor, memory, and the right to dance even when the power cuts out.

Inanna’s temple priests brewed sacred beer laced with honey and coriander. I can’t legally slip honey-beer to every guest, but I lace conversation with the same ingredients—sweet reminiscence, peppery jokes, coriander-fresh curiosity. People drink stories faster than booze, trust me. By paragraph four, you’ve downed two imaginary goblets already.

My last dawn in Baghdad smelled like diesel and jasmine. The generator across the alley coughed to life, competing with a night-blooming vine climbing our balcony. It was 2010, and I’d spent the previous week shuffling through visa papers while packing cocktail shakers between my clothes—because even fugitives of circumstance deserve stainless-steel style.

We’d survived the worst spikes of sectarian violence (2006-2008) by mapping alternate routes to school and rehearsing which uncle’s name to drop at each checkpoint. My kid brother turned it into a game: “Checkpoint Bingo—collect all five factions and win.” Humor is a last-ditch lifejacket; you cling to it when mortar whines replace lullabies.

People ask why I left. Officially: scholarship in Istanbul. Unofficially: I couldn’t stand seeing my favorite date-palm grove shrink behind blast walls. Creativity wilts when daily life is triage. I wanted fresh air for my ideas—and a bar scene that didn’t close at 9 p.m. because sirens said so. But I never stopped folding Iraq into every recipe.

In Istanbul I met Syrian, Yemeni, and Palestinian bartenders—each with their own exit-wound stories. We formed a chosen family called The Spice Route Syndicate and traded refugee hacks: how to stretch a paycheck, how to navigate embassy phone mazes, how to smuggle saffron in luggage without TSA confetti. Those hacks taught me agility—perfect practice for flipping drinks mid-air.