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The raki was a special liquor they made from fermented fruits like plums or mulberries with spicy additives like juniper or anise, that smelled, to me, like licorice and turpentine.

“Maybe one bag of cherry paste and one jar of raki.”

“We’ll take it,” I said, shoving the sack of gunpowder into the merchant’s hand and grabbing a single bag of cherry paste and a jar of raki.

I held the cherry paste and the raki in one hand, and the loose gunpowder in another.

I had to stuff the jar of raki and the packet of cherry paste under the bundles of wool on the pack mule in order to yank on Rostam’s harness with both hands.