India’s homegrown spirits navigate new territories

How does a spirit distinguish itself as uniquely Indian? Is it the provenance of its ingredients, its origin story, or a marriage of both?

With Indian consumers eager to experiment with their tipple, homegrown brews are finding their way onto hipster bars, in a market flush with inventive Indian gins and whiskey. Feni from Goa, agave spirits born from produce in the Deccan plateau, and mahua from the central Indian heartland, offer a truly Indian experience.

Feni conjures memories of Goan holidays: The beach, recheado-spiced seafood and the heady aroma of cashew and coconut woven with fresh citrus. Feni, the first homegrown spirit to earn a Geographical Indication tag (GI is an indication used to identify goods having special characteristics originating from a definite geographical territory, specifically used in agriculture, natural and manufactured items) is now a heritage spirit of Goa, at par with international liquors such as Mexican tequila, Japanese sake and Russian vodka. 

Hansel Vaz, founder, Cazulo Premium Feni at Vaz Liquor Industries, has been the torchbearer for the Goan spirit, since taking over his family business, started in the 1970s. A geologist by profession, Vaz now spends his time elevating the experience at his distilleries in South Goa, while documenting the drink’s unique story as a feni ethnographer, recently submitting paperwork to get coconut feni its own GI tag.

“In the 1990s, with a boom in tourism, there was a deluge of feni in the market and often, the essence of the spirit was lost as sales increased. Feni, both cashew and coconut, have been crafted on our shores, in small batches, for over four centuries, and we use the same techniques as they did back then,” Vaz says. For the cashew feni, cashew apples that fall to the ground are stomped on in a stone pit, fermented naturally in earthen pots half-buried in the ground. The coconut varietal boasts of hand-harvested sweet coconut toddy, allowed to further ferment by encouraging the use of naturally occurring wild tropical yeasts.

“In 2019, I started distillery tours that gained momentum by word of mouth. At our tasting, we sit together and taste feni in its many iterations with a smorgasbord of 23 local delicacies including Goan sausage and perad (guava cheese). Our 200-year-old distillery — Fazenda Cazulo — still uses pre-industrial processes,” adds Hanzel.

Bottled at a high 42.8% ABV (alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage), the cashew feni sells at ₹600 for a 750ml bottle, while the botanical Dukshiri variant is priced at ₹1,000 per bottle. “I think gin, with its focus on botanicals, has paved the way for Indians to appreciate feni. Our Dukshiri is coconut feni made with the Indian sarsaparilla root; the drink has an earthy flavour with notes of petrichor, peanut and salted caramel.”

2022 is looking up as Hansel is ready to launch in Mumbai, creating a distil your own feni project as well as an initiative to plant more cashew trees within Goa with every case sold.