In cricket-obsessed India, Goa’s passion for football makes it an outlier. So does the size of its Christian population (30% to India’s 3%), the prevalence of beef and pork on restaurant menus, and its permissiveness toward alcohol. Even in a country as diverse as India, the state of Goa stands out, and these deviations from the national norm (and a reputation for hedonism that is frowned upon elsewhere in the country) make it a favorite vacation destination for Indian and foreign tourists alike.
Occupying a narrow strip of coastal land stretching from the Western Ghats to the Arabian Sea, Goa is also an outlier in that it was a colonial outpost, not of the British, but of the Portuguese. While not many people still speak the language, surnames (De Souza, Noronha), churches (Mae de Deus, Our Lady of Socorro), street signs (Rua 31 de Janeiro, Rua de Natal) and business names (Saudades Villas, Prazeres Resort) all serve as reminders of Goa’s colonial past.
In addition to catholicism and chouriço sausages, the Portuguese also brought cashew trees to Goa, sometime in the 16th century. The cashew does not grow in Portugal, but it is native to its largest colony: Brazil. The popular story (though there is scarce historical documentation to confirm this) is that the trees were carried from Brazil in order to stabilize steep hillsides and prevent erosion, and that their prolific production of both the cashew nut and the cashew apple fruit (more on that below) was an unintended bonus. Today, cashew trees cover more ground in Goa than any other horticultural crop.
Despite the tree’s South American and colonial roots, cashew has become closely intertwined with Goan culture and identity. It features in traditional Goan recipes and folk music, it is celebrated in annual festivals, and is a common sight in rural and urban landscapes alike.
While probably everyone reading this is familiar with cashew nuts, if you’ve never been to Brazil or Mozambique or Vietnam (or India) it is likely that you’ve never seen one in its natural habitat. What many call the cashew “apple” is not actually a true fruit (the nut is actually the fruit), but is rather the fleshy stalk of the inflorescence of the tree from which the nut protrudes. The nut is encased in a tough, leathery casing, floating in a bubble of caustic fluid that can cause burns when it comes into contact with the skin.
I know this from experience. I once saw these growing on the side of the road in Brazil and out of curiosity I bit into the shell surrounding the nut to see what it looked like inside. Acid instantly flooded my mouth, causing burns and blisters and destroying my sense of taste for days. Luckily I recovered, and I learned my lesson. (Incidentally, Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL) has several industrial uses as an ingredient in varnishes, resins, polymers, and as a biofuel.)
When the nuts are mature they are separated from the apple and roasted, while, in most places in the world, the apple becomes organic waste (or in some better cases, compost). These fruits are vaguely sweet, but astringent to the point of being nearly inedible (except to elephants, who are credited in at least one paper with spreading the tree throughout India by eating the apples and passing the nuts through their system undigested). Some folks have told me they remember eating them raw as a child, but I also used to chomp on raw rhubarb stalks, so I guess kids will take whatever source of sugar they can find.
In Brazil, where I had my first inauspicious encounter with the cashew apple, it is made into juices and smoothies with plenty of sugar added, yielding a refreshing but vaguely funky summer beverage. In Goa, however, the cashew apple is transmuted through the magic of fermentation and distillation into what has become known as the state’s heritage spirit: feni.
The story of feni in Goa has been told many times, though not without some disagreement. While the provenance of the cashew is very clear, the origin of distilling is less so. Most sources claim that distilling pre-dates the arrival of the Portuguese, and that Goans who had been making liquor from coconut toddy simply turned their talents to the new and exotic fruit borne by the colonizers to their shores. Others dispute the evidence of distillation in ancient India and posit that the technology came with European colonization.
Either way, by the end of the 16th century feni was well established as Goa’s “country liquor” (more on that in a future post) and became closely associated with Goan culture, identity, and tradition. Many Goans I’ve talked to have childhood memories of climbing the steep hillsides in spring to collect cashews that had fallen to the ground, separating the nuts from the fruit and roasting the former while crushing the latter into juice. That juice would be fermented for just 3 or 4 days (owing to the hot climate) before being distilled.
The first distillation yields a prized seasonal drink called urrak. Many folks that I’ve talked to prefer urrak to feni, partially because it is only around 10-15% alcohol and therefore a more quaffable and forgiving beverage. The other reason, though, is that it is not shelf-stable unless refrigerated, and is therefore a fleeting seasonal treat that heralds the beginning of summer.
The second (or sometimes third) distillation yields feni, a spirit of around 40-48% alcohol, and bearing the unmistakable, distinctive, and some say off-putting aroma of the fruit from whence it comes. For me, the first whiff brought a stab of nostalgia, as it instantly brought me back to the juice shops in Rio de Janeiro where I’ve spent time over the years. For a friend who went with me to a tavern in the capital city of Panjim that is known for serving “village feni”, it smelled “like ass”.
“Village feni” is an important designation in the Goan liquor landscape. One thing I have learned so far is that there are 2, maybe 3, separate but connected spheres of the feni ecosystem. The first is the one most visible to tourists. The foodie-friendly, craft-cocktail-focused realm of commercial distillers and bottlers. Unsurprisingly, this was my first introduction to feni. I’m not sure it could have been any other way.
In my eagerness to taste the stuff when I first arrived here, I quickly booked a “feni and tapas walking tour” of Panjim’s historic (and increasingly hip) neighborhoods. I told the tour guide why I was in town and she graciously ordered me a straight shot of feni at the first stop so that I could taste it in its natural state. For the average tourist, the feni on the tour is normally buried in very complex (and delicious) cocktails that help to mitigate the ass-ness—or rather, the unique musky-fruit bouquet—of the spirit.
To be clear, I delight in the unique flavor of feni, but it isn’t for everyone. In fact, in an effort to promote the sector, the state excise department provides subsidies to small distilleries to install more “modern” distillation equipment to produce a cleaner tasting spirit. And this is indeed what you get from the larger commercial producers who are aiming at the tourist and export markets.
“Local” or “village” feni occupies a different niche in the alcohol ecosystem. For the most part, smaller-scale distillers sell their feni directly to local taverns, as well as neighbors and friends, with no ambition to supply Goa’s casinos, liquor stores, or high-end restaurants. This is the feni that my friend and I went to find at an urban tavern that we both had heard was “the place” to go to find the real, authentic, un-sanitized stuff.
When we arrived, we did not find the hole-in-the-wall that we were expecting. Instead we found what probably used to be a hole-in-the-wall until one too many people like us heard about it, and it was stuffed to the gills with foreign and Indian tourists, not a Goan in sight except behind the bar, as far as we could tell. It was indeed serving what they called local feni, but when we asked what village it was from they referred to a place 40 minutes away.
This left us wondering where the “local” feni might have come from 50 or 100 or 500 years ago, before the Geographic Indication tag that was established in 2009, before the state government’s zealous promotion of feni tourism, and before the hipster foodies arrived.
Like țuică, the Romanian moonshine I studied this fall, feni is an acquired taste, one that is acquired not simply through the (re)orientation of one’s palate, but through nostalgia, memory, and meaning. Unlike țuică, there are powerful forces at work here formalizing the industry and intentionally placing feni at the center of a zealous tourism campaign. The contradictions embedded in this process will be the subject of my next post, but for now I will simply say this: many Goans have fond memories of feni season that are all about family, community, and the unbidden bounty of the land. One day, perhaps even in the coming decades, they may only be memories.