)
I've written a lot about grape wines, but rarely ventured into the field of 'native' alcoholic beverages from either India or the Far East for many reasons: unfamiliarity, unavailability, and perhaps just plain old-fashioned prejudice.
It's a fact that most Indians are totally unfamiliar with 'native' alcoholic beverages, both in India and further east. For one, the excise system here actively discourages indigenous alcoholic beverages simply because they are a pain to monitor and yield lower revenues (than the stuff from the 'organised' sector). Two, native alcoholic beverages from further afield (China, Japan, Korea) are just not available - and even if they were, it's likely that nobody would buy them as they taste different. So just what are we talking about?
Palm wine (toddy)
Possibly the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world, palm wine is made by fermenting the sap of various species of the palm tree including the palmyra (wine palm), coconut palm, and date palm trees. The sap is tapped from the top of the palm: when fresh, it is sweet and non-alcoholic ("neera"), but ferments naturally into a mildly alcoholic (three to four per cent) drink within a few hours.
The drink is popularly called toddy (an anglicisation of the Indian name taadi, which the Brits just couldn't pronounce), but goes by many other names elsewhere (kallu in Tamil Nadu, tuak in Indonesia, and raa in Sri Lanka, to name but a few).
Revenue compulsions have led to Toddy being banned in most of South India, and toddy tappers driven out of livelihood - unfortunate, as neera is a terrific libation when fresh (and quite awful when not!).
Rice wine (Sake)
While touted as a wine, drinks like Sake (Japan), Cho jiu (China), or Gamju (Korea) are all really rice beers as their preparation involves first converting the starch in rice to sugar (mashing and brewing), and then fermenting the sugar alcohol to give a beverage ranging in strength between 14-20 per cent V/V!
The fermented stuff is not to be confused with the distilled product - variously called Shochu (Japan), Soju (Korea), or Cho jiu (China), and which can reach strengths of 40-60 per cent V/V!
There is also a range of alcoholic beverages made from grain (barley, rye, other coarse grains) in the Far East - these are called Chaang in Tibet and Qingke jiu in China.
The quality (and cost) of some types of Sake can be really quite high, and there's a whole body of writing (and aficionados) extolling the virtues of Sake - just google the term to see what I mean.
And what's my take on these beverages? I'm not qualified to say, as I've never really been for a Sake-tasting - who knows, one day ...?
Wines I've been drinking: I tasted the whole range of wines from Big Banyan recently at The Paul Hotel in Bangalore, and came away impressed. The Sauvignon Blanc was crisp and herbaceous, developing secondary notes of guava and lime; the Chenin Blanc had green apple, thyme, and peach aromas and a sweet initial taste but a dry finish that delighted; the Chardonnay was unusually buttery (for an Indian wine), with a good mouthfeel but bitter-ish finish. However, the Rosa Rossa was simply delightful: crisp but easy-drinking, flowery and fruity at the same time, terrific mouthfeel. And the Limited Reserve Shiraz 2008 is great: complex aromas (fruit, berries, chocolate, some spice) and lovely taste and mouthfeel - we quaffed the bottle!
Cheers (or, as they say in China, Kanpai!)
Alok Chandra is a Bangalore-based wine consultant
