REGIONAL ALCOHOL OF INDIA

When we think of India, alcoholic beverages are not the first thing that comes to our mind, but in India there is a tradition of making alcoholic beverages since Vedic periods. Today in India everyone will talk about whiskey, gin, brandy and wine. But these all is western culture, it’s not Indian culture people have forgotten our Indian roots of alcoholic beverages. Today we will be discussing top 3 Indian alcoholic beverages.

WHAT IS ALCOHOL?

Alcohol is basically liquid resulting from the fermentation of sugar substances, which is isolated by distillation. The word was first used by alchemists, who derived it from the Arabic word ‘al kohl’, which originally meant pulverized antimony and then mean to came any product used crushed to a powder.in the middle ages alcohol was considered an elixir of life from which it acquired the name eau-de-vie. It came to use as a drink towards the end of 15^th century when all kinds of herbs and plants were introduced to it. Finally the invention of rectification and still transformed it into mass market. Alcohol has antiseptic properties but it becomes toxic when quantity exceeds in blood.

INDIA AND ALCOHOL  

Fermented food preparation, as mentioned in literary texts, is more than 3,000 years old in India. The Rig-Veda shows that fermentation technology took its first step in connection with the preparation of soma juice (alcoholic beverage). There is also another drink, known as sura (wine/beer), prepared by fermentation of boiled rice/barley. It is known from different sources that during the post-Vedic period (600 BCE to 100 CE) many beverages like medeka (spiced rice beer), prasanna (spiced barley or wheat beer), asava (sugarcane beer), etc. Were some of the most popular drinks in India.

3-Handia

Handia (Also handi or hadiya) is a rice beer originated in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh and West Bengal

Karma puja a major tribal festival is celebrated among these states, these festival is very sacred among the tribal groups such as Baiga, Oraon, Binjhwari, Munda, Majhwar, Ho, Santhal and many more tribal communities. This festival is associated with harvest.

Any tribal festival is incomplete without this rice beer called Handia. The word handia probably owes its origin to handi in which it is made. Handia is considered as the most sacred drink among Munda and Santhal tribes, these both tribes claims to be inventor of it.

The locals have inherited the process of making the drink from their ancestors as the craft passes on from one generation to the other since ages. Handia is prepared by mixing boiled rice with traditional fermentation culture.it is made by mixing traditional fermenting culture Ranu tablets (Bakhar), with boiled rice and  allowing them to ferment in an earthen pot (Handi) for 2-3 days with mouth slightly open. After fermentation, the fermented slurry is filtered and weak cream-coloured product is taken as drink.

Ranu tablets or Ranu goti are the mixtures of roots, barks, rhizomes, leaves of about 20-25 plant species, which these indigenous people collect from the forests. Sometimes one may even find that handia from previous batch is added to new batch as a starter.

Handia is best accompanied by a chutney of tamarind, chilli and salt.

2-Chhang

Chhang is one of the important and indispensable barley based alcoholic beverage prepared and consumed by the people for centuries. Chhang forms a part of sociocultural life of the people of Ladakh and no social activity is complete without the beverage.

The preparation process of this is as follow, first the barley is cleaned from any immunities than it is boiled and then it is spread on a canvas known as khol-char made of weaven Yak’s fur. On cooling the boiled grains, locally available starter culture in form of tablets known as phabs is added to the content. The tablets are ground to fine powder and mixed with boiled grains. Then its grains are transferred to a cloth bag and weight is kept above it. It is allowed to ferment for 4-10 days depending on the temperature after that, chhang is extracted by adding water to this content until it gets submerged and then pressing it. The content is pressed for four times. The filtrate is termed as machu meaning concentrate or tang-po meaning first. After first filtrate is taken out of the drum, water is again added till the fermented grains get submerged. The filtrate is again taken after 2 - 5 hrs. and it is termed nyis-pa meaning second. The process continued and the third and fourth filtrates termed sum-pa and gyi-pa, respectively are taken.

1­- Mahua

 Mexico has tequila, USA has bourbon, Russia has vodka what does India have?

Mahua is a drink made from flowers of Mahua plant this flowers are naturally sweet and are grown in plains of India such as Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. 

This flowers and naturally sweet and gives Mahua its floral identity. It is prepared by single distillation in a homemade pot still. Women plays a major role in production and selling of Mahua. It is most probably the only drink in the world that is made from the sweet flowers. Apart from making alcohol Mahua flowers are used to make laddos, jams and chutneys. The art of making Mahua is passed on from one generation to another. Mahua has a potential of being a national drink, and by seeing this potential Mr Desmond Nazareth founder of Agave India Company has made the process of making more sophisticated and bottled it and started selling it in two states Goa and Karnataka. He is working with authorities of other states in order to sell it their also, so that everyone gets too known about this national treasure.

These are the top three spirits that India have, but there are many more such as Fenni from Goa, Po:ro Apong from Assam, Chuwarak from Tripura, Kiad from Meghalaya, Zutho from Nagaland, Toddy from Andhra Pradesh and Kesar Kasturi from Rajasthan.

 It is important for us to preserve this culture of making alcohol, most of the art of making this spirit is passed from generations to generations without any documentation.

“Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable”

                                                                                                        -G.K Chesterton