First Pakistani Bar a Breath of Fresh Air

With its velvety sofas and soft lighting, Pakistan’s first bar looks and feels like it could be in any western city, with prices to match. But instead of glasses of wine or pints of creamy beer, the counter is lined with tubes that dispense a tipple more befitting a good Muslim country: pure oxygen. The Oxygen Bar, in a suburb of Pakistan’s cultural capital, Lahore, is the first public bar since alcohol was banned in 1977, in a country where most socialising is done behind closed doors and where alcohol is – legally at least – unavailable.