Ankara is not a dry town, Turkey is not a dry country. An apocryphal story from an old friend, unheard of since a timely move to Moscow, tells that the three cheapest things to drink when he got to Turkey were, in reverse order, water, coke and beer. In Turkey raki is the drink that accompanies meals, beer is a little common and anything else, especially if it's imported, is a little expensive. Let's run through the possibilities.

Raki - Domestic, ouzo type, aniseed based spirit. Somewhere in the region of $5 a bottle outside of restaurants and traditionally, some would say necessarily, drunk mixed with water, accompanied by a glass of water and with a fair bit of ice in it. Notable for the unusually belligerent drunkenness it is capable of inducing if consumed in immoderate quantities and an acquired taste. Best enjoyed, IMHO, with honeydew melon, white cheese and a nice bit of fish.

Beer - Not a great deal of choice, the major brands are Efes, Tuborg, Venus (manufactured by Turborg), and the increasingly hard to find Marmara. Lagery coloured 5% type beers on the whole, gassy in cans and unreliable on draught, your best bet is bottles. Very cheap in supermarkets and, in a lot of parts of Ankara, available on the street for that sophisticated westerner about town look. A recent development is 'Dark' beers, a concession to I'm not sure what that provide a welcome variety. Efes and Venus are both producing them at the moment.

Wine - Ankara prides itself on a wine heritage, the Sheraton Hotel is the strange shape it is becasue, supposedly, the owner of the land it now stands on, the Kavaklidere vinyards as was, insisted that the architect make it look like a bottle of wine. It's quite difficult to pay more than $15 for a bottle of wine in a supermarket but restaurants will add the usual, scandalous mark-up for carrying it to the table for you so beware. The aforementioned Kavaklidere brand is a reasonable table wine but for amusement you might want to consider some of the cheaper labels with the plastic corks or screw tops.