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Come back when you are 18. Rumi will wait.
رویای تمام انگورها
The dream of all grapes.
Every grape dreams of becoming Parsi: Persian wines and spirits, poured again after decades.
The revival of a lost tradition
For decades, in the heartland of ancient Persian culture, Iran and Afghanistan, the production of wine has been banned. Yet Persians around the world regard wine as a lost beauty of their heritage. It runs through the verses of Khayyam, Hafez and Rumi, and through the miniatures where the Saqi, the wine-pourer, appears as the muse of the poets.
To do justice to this forgotten tradition, we make our Parsi wines: our own production in Moldova, infused with Persian nostalgia. A quiet, symbolic act of resistance against fanaticism, and an invitation to everyone to share the table.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
The Parsi collection
Six ancient Persian cities, and one woman. Every bottle carries a different quatrain by Omar Khayyam. Choose a bottle.
The soul of the grape
For the ancient Persians, the lees were an indispensable part of wine. A wine without dregs was a dead wine, because in the dregs, they believed, dwelt the soul of the grape.
To bring that soul into the bottle, we do not filter our wines. A little sediment in your glass? That is the soul. It sank to the bottom out of modesty.
“Only for the true connoisseurs does the Saqi pour the wine with its lees.”After Hafez of Shiraz (14th century)
From vine to bottle
Until Persian grapes may become wine again in Persian soil, Parsi lives in exile. Our grapes are picked by hand and pressed at our partner winery in Moldova, among the oldest wine lands of Europe.
Rumi spirits
with Persian spices
Named after Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi, Rumi (1207–1273), the great Sufi mystic and poet of the Persian language, born in Balkh. Very aromatic and elegantly soft: wonderful in a cocktail, or simply on its own.
“It makes you more of what you are.” آن چنان را آن چنانتر میکند
a Persian garden in a glass
Saffron, the red gold of the Persian world, leads a bouquet of juniper, coriander seed, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, rhubarb root, lavender, orange blossom and citrus peel. Perfect in a gin & tonic with a twist of orange.
In the press
In spring 2019, Rumi Vodka made international headlines. What began as a column in Turkey grew into a discussion about who owns a poet, about freedom of expression, and about the place of wine in Persian culture.
“Tolerance and freedom of expression are values we hold high in esteem in the Netherlands.”Letter of the Netherlands Ambassador to Turkey, 19 April 2019
Comparative Studies in Society and History · Cambridge University Press · 2022
In this open-access article, Pooyan Tamimi Arab (Utrecht University) uses De Filosoof, Rumi Vodka and the Parsi wines as a case study on drinking, poetry and pluralism in the Persian-speaking world.
Read the article on Cambridge Core →A Turkish columnist attacks the brand for naming a vodka after Rumi, known in Turkey as Mevlânâ. Turkish media pick up the story.
The mayor of Konya, where Rumi is buried, and the International Mevlana Foundation send letters demanding that the vodka be withdrawn.
Threats and intimidation lead the shop in The Hague to close for several days. Dutch newspapers and two Dutch MPs, Dilan Yeşilgöz and Sadet Karabulut, publicly condemn the pressure.
The Dutch Ambassador to Turkey replies that freedom of expression includes the choice of a brand name. The Dutch government takes no action.
Cambridge University Press publishes an academic study of Rumi Vodka and the Parsi wines.
Rumi Vodka is still on the shelf, with the same verse on the label: it makes you more of what you are.
The founder
Ofran Badakhshani is a man of many loves: philosophy, literature and history. But his greatest love is the Persian language, and Greater Iran with its beautiful peoples.
Born in Badakhshan, he arrived in Amsterdam at thirteen as a refugee and studied philosophy in the Netherlands. In The Hague he founded De Filosoof, and later Rumi Beverages: his personal attempt to bring a lost tradition back to life, and to connect Persians all over the world, with each other and with everyone else, over a glass of wine.
Every day that he cannot make wine in Shiraz or Herat, in Espahan or Balkh, is one painful day too many. Until that day, Parsi does what he does himself: it lives in exile, beyond the borders of Persia, and keeps bringing people together.
Ba shādi · با شادیWe raise our glass with happiness
Where to find us
For restaurants, wine bars & importers
Persian and Afghan restaurants, wine bars and importers across Europe pour Parsi and Rumi. We supply directly from The Hague, together with the stories behind every bottle.