Possibly the most Lebanese thing you can put in a glass. Massaya is the Ghosn brothers’ operation on the Tanail property in the Bekaa Valley, and they make their arak the old way: indigenous Obeidi grapes, triple-distilled in copper alembics, flavored with green aniseed, then rested about two years in handmade clay jars from Beit Chabab. Clay, not oak, so nothing at all gets between you and the anise. The ritual matters here, so do it properly: arak into the glass, then water at roughly two parts to one, and watch it turn milky white. Ice goes in last, never first. Then eat, because arak exists to be drunk alongside mezze, the hummus and labneh and grilled meat and parsley-heavy tabbouleh, and it slices straight through all of it. Behind the bar it works as an absinthe stand-in for an anise rinse. The half-bottle is a low-stakes way to find out whether you’re an arak person.