When a renowned Iranian artist hosted friends at his apartment in Tehran last month, he served, as he did often, a bottle of homemade aragh, a traditional Iranian vodka distilled from raisins, that he had secured from a trusted dealer.
His guests and his partner did not drink that evening, so he raised shot glasses to them and drank alone.
Within a few hours, the artist, Khosrow Hassanzadeh, 60, felt his vision blur.
By the next morning, his sight was gone, he was delirious and short of breath.
He was rushed to a hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with methanol poisoning from the aragh, according to his partner, Shahrzad Afrashteh.
Persons:
Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Shahrzad Afrashteh
Locations:
Iranian, Tehran