Arak (Distilled Beverage)

Arak or araq is a clear, colourless, unsweetened aniseed-flavoured distilled alcoholic drink, produced and consumed in the Eastern Mediterranean and Northern African countries, Lebanon,Iran, Syria, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. The word comes from Arabic ¿araq ¿¿¿. Arak is not to be confused with the similarly named liquor, arrack (which in some cases, such as in Indonesia-especially Bali, also goes by the name arak). Another similarly sounding word is aragh, which in Armenia is the colloquial name of vodka, and not an aniseed-flavoured drink. Raki and ouzo are aniseed-flavored alcoholic drinks related to arak popular in Turkey and Greece.