Long before Manhattans, Cosmos and LITs defined our drinks repertoire, ancient India was known for its extensive, indigenous liquor-making culture. A few centuries ago, we, like the rest of the drinking world, began our affair with alcohol via madhira or wine — the go-to beverage for ancient royalty — made from honey, jaggery or molasses. During the Vedic ages, fermented brews made from rice and cereals, namely kanji and kilala , were a regular order with affluent communities. Commoners and cousins in the South preferred toddy, made from the sap of the palmyra tree, while Northeastern brothers opted for barley, millet or rice-based beers.
It wasn’t until the British became preoccupied with launching rum distilleries for Army rations, and taxing local spirits like toddy and mahua , that our home-grown drinks were cornered into hooch status. Incredibly, a few olden-style swills silently continued to bloom. Mahua, an indigenous Indian tree, in particular, was nurtured and worshipped by tribal communities under the deep and dry deciduous covers of central Indian forests.
Seventy years later, India’s most-touted and secretly-consumed Adivasi tipple is set to step out of its illicit, camouflaged abode, straight into the sun-kissed Goan light, thanks to IITian-turned-craft distiller Desmond Nazareth. If you’re a connoisseur of unusual beverages, chances are you’ve already sampled some of Nazareth’s artisanal creations, spanning agave, pure cane, margarita mixes, orange liqueur and blue curaçao.
If not, I recommend you start by trying his latest offerings: DJ Mahua and DJ Mahua Liqueur. “My first mahua encounter dates back to 2001, Gujarat,” reminisces Nazareth, adding that the intrigue and chase of obtaining a bent-out-of-shape, dirty plastic bottle full of cloudy mahua , that smelt of musky cooked rice, only supplemented its allure. In fact, it made it to the very top of his ‘to make’ list when he launched DesmondJi in 2011, but soon decided to shelve it until the time was right. In 2013, Nazareth acquired his first batch of unhygienic-handled mahua flowers from Latur, Maharashtra and began kitchen-scale experiments. “Hygiene, I understood, was the key to delivering an international quality product, but that also meant I needed to oversee the whole process from collection and sorting to producing,” says the 61-year-old, referencing his yearly sourcing trips to Jharkhand and Odisha.
So while the tribals practise little to no hygiene checks, single-distil and are left with 10% alcohol, which they retail for ₹200, DJ Mahua conducts five levels of hygiene checks, double-distils using pot stills and is left with 40% alcohol, which they will retail for ₹975.
“This isn’t just a one-way street. I’ve been working with the tribals on sanitation education, which in turn will hopefully have a positive effect on their own distillation,” affirms Nazareth.In the last decade alone, amidst prohibitions, trade and storage restrictions, two states — Assam and Jharkhand — have come out in support of the Gonds’ favoured pick-me-up, to promote local ethnic brews as ‘heritage liquor’. If France has Champagne and Mexico has Tequila, then why should India stop short at Darjeeling tea? Mahua too is just as deserving of GI (Geographical Indication) protection. The former field-to-bottle recently upgraded forest-to-bottle distiller couldn’t agree more. “This year, for the first time ever, many more Indians can participate in the annual, pre-monsoon Mahua Tyohar,” he ends enthusiastically.
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