Throughout the country there’s an ample supply of imported canned beer - Tiger from Singapore and Singha from Thailand, or several brands of Indian beer, which comes in large (650 mL) bottles.

The most popular brands are Black Label, Golden Eagle and Dansberg from Sikkim.

There are several brands of whiskey including Special Courier, Black Mountain Whiskey (better known as ‘BMW’), Royal Supreme and Changta, the cheapest.

The better brands compare favorably with good Scotch whiskey.

There are local rums: XXX Bhutan Rum is the strongest, and gins such as Crystal and Pacham.

The most common local brew is bang chhang, a warm beer -like drink made from wheat.

The favourite hard drinks are arra, a spirit distilled from rice, and sinchhang, which is made from millet, wheat or rice.