As opposed to the general wisdom, which does not usually associate alcohol with the Islamic world, alcohol consumption was prevalent in the Ottoman Empire. Focusing on this fundamental topic, this paper investigates how the consumption of alcoholic beverages by Muslim drinkers, from Ottoman sultans to ordinary Ottoman individuals, transformed the social and political fabric of seventeenth-century Istanbul. I argue that the habit of alcohol drinking by Ottoman sultans—such as the famously heavy drinker Murad IV (r. 1623-1640)—elites, and ordinary subjects contributed to the essential role of alcohol in Ottoman society. The convivial gatherings that accompanied alcohol in public and private spaces (taverns, private residences, etc.) constituted a significant component of Ottoman society, shaping urban life, state-society encounters, morality, religiosity, and sociability. These gatherings had even a considerable impact on the temporary nature of alcohol-related prohibitions imposed by the imperial and local authorities. To support these claims and provide a more nuanced understanding of the topic, this paper draws on a wide array of historical sources, including the city’s Islamic court records, the Ottoman Imperial Council registers, Ottoman chronicles, and Ottoman and European travel narratives, and benefits from analytical approaches of microhistorical studies. By doing so, this paper makes scholarly interventions in the few existing studies that argue that alcohol was limited to the royals, elites, and non-Muslims in the early modern Islamic world. Furthermore, it advances the burgeoning debates around the reconceptualization of Islam as a religion based on the coherence of contradictions.