Hizbullah Secretary General’s Lemonade Advice

Local Editor

Lemonade may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Hizbullah, but its Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah swears by it to get him through his long speeches.

In his latest speech, Hizbullah's Secretary General Sayyed Nasrallah had shrugged the rumors circulating over his health stating that there was nothing more than lemonade in his glass.

Extolling the drink's benefits, he said it "helped in delivering speeches" and advised all orators to have some handy, the al-Akhbar news website reported.

It didn't take long for social media users to spread the news, with some dubbing lemonade "Hizbullah's official drink".

Moreover, many adopted the term Qalamounada, a mash up of the Arabic word for lemonade - lamounada - and the site of a current Hizbullah battle in the Qalamoun Mountains of Syria.

"I'm inviting you for a Qalamounada," one Twitter user declared after the speech. On Facebook, one man jokes that lemon prices have risen and supplies are running low since the Hizbullah's Secretary General "prescribed" it.

However, the impact isn't just on the internet. According to al-Akhbar, cafe owners are offering free lemonade to mark every speech he gives, while another report said shop owners in Beirut's Southern Suburbs have hung up signs advertising fresh "Nasrallah lemonade".

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team