How Families In India Are Keeping A 500-Year-Old Cashew Liquor Tradition Alive | Still Standing

juice from cashew fruit is the one ingredient in feni a rare liquor made only in this part of the world this family is one of the few still using techniques that date back to the 1500s while some brands are pushing to bring fenney to the mainstream these farmers found a way to stay in business by hand making small batches and selling locally we visited goa india to see how the centuries-old tradition is still standing the gownka family searches their land for fallen fruits every morning the fruits fall when they're ripe they use a wooden stick with a needle at the end to pick up each cashew fruit drupati gamkar is the matriarch of the 100 year old family operation she's been making feni for 60 years and took over the business after her husband passed away during fenney's season from march to april her children and grandchildren help out after filling around eight buckets in an hour they take out the seeds one by one the family separates the cashew fruit from the cashew nut they sell the raw cashews to factories that roast and package them then it's time to juice santosh gankar puts on mining boots the hard souls get more juice out of the fruits he grew up helping his mother on the farm and has been doing this full time for 25 years little by little he stomps away the family used to use a big wooden stick for this step but they eventually found that stomping with their feet was more effective it can get slippery so santosh holds on tight for balance juicing a full vat of cashew apples takes about an hour and in the 100 degree heat it can be exhausting during breaks they get fresh cashew fruit juice that you can't find in stores it has a shelf life of just one day then santosh piles the last bits of fruit into a mound he wraps it with a rope and drags a few rocks on top to squeeze out every last drop of juice they leave the fruits like this overnight machines would speed up this process but it's not an option for this family look at [Music] they throw away the fruit waste or give it to farmers to use as cattle feed bucket by bucket they filter out any pulp fibers through a cloth then the juice sits to ferment for two or three days they transfer it into a copper drum meanwhile drupati prepares to seal the drum by dousing a piece of cloth and mud the mud comes from nearby ant hills the ants and snakes that live in these mounds refine the soil which makes it better for sealing the tanks wraps the clay covered cloth around the openings to ensure no air escapes she lights a fire to heat the juice using wood harvested from their land it burns for around eight hours steam passes through the pipe and into a tank filled with water it cools down the vapor and a slow stream of orak comes out the other end iraq is a less alcoholic beverage that the family sells when there's demand otherwise they put it back into the copper pot and distill it for another seven to eight hours once it reaches the right temperature it's fenny with 45 alcohol they also test it by looking at the bubbles which should be big and spread apart slowly the family learned this through decades of experience and close observation if any they make 175 liters of fenney every season and usually sell all of it to local buyers but business today looks a little different than it used to people in nearby villages have moved to bigger cities for work so fewer people come by to drink fenney yeah the family brings in around 50 000 indian rupees or nearly 700 in a season and their operation probably won't be getting any bigger since buying more land can be expensive the government auctions off trees to the highest bidder right now meanwhile other funny makers in goa are looking to expand the market and popularize the drink a brand called kazulo draws in locals and tourists with a tasting room and distillery tours basically when you step out from here you're baptized into a new fenney drinker one of the tour's big attractions is the underwater aging technique workers have to dive in the water to pull out aged bottles of fenney we have feni that has been resting for more than two years so that the flavors mellow down but under control temperature it was an old technique used by the georgians for wines kazulo gets its feni from local farmers who hand make it in the traditional way just like the gown cut family some of these methods date back to at least the 1500s when farmers in this region used to make liquor from coconut palm sap called tari our ancestors had this thought where they said you know what let's innovate let's take an extra step ahead you know if we can do a distilled toddy which has sugar let's try whistling fruits after the portuguese brought cashew trees from brazil to goa at some point during the 16th century distilling cashew feni became more common since it was easier to produce it's been popular throughout goa ever since but it hasn't been able to break out beyond state lines feni comes under the country liquor category that very notion puts you in a place saying that you know what it's an inferior spirit the world outside goa is so difficult to enter in terms of spirit it is a great spirit with a great story and a great culture but we've not been able to put it out so we use chili and salt we've been in a bubble for more than 200 years fenia's existed but never spoken about and now it's time that we come out of a bubble for the gown god family they're not sure how much longer their business will sustain them so like foreign

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 2,747,757

Rating: 4.8277493 out of 5

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, Still standing, Tradition, Business

Id: N0o65tMtoB8

Length: 9min 22sec (562 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/stylesuponstyles]

I was given Feni in Goa. It's minging. I couldn't shake the taste for days!

As much as I support people keeping traditions alive, none for me thanks.

Did not enjoy. 0/10. Would not recommend.

[u/garyzxcv]

38 comments and no one is gonna ask what's wrong with his right knee?

[u/CivilCJ]

I thought cashews were poisonous? Or is that just the nut before it's roasted?

[u/Laterian]

This just really grossed me out. When he says you could taste the rust off machines if they were used... Instead of the taste of his sweat, boots, dirt, moldy concrete and the rotten barrels they used?

[u/MartelFirst]

Til cashews (the nuts) are some weird outgrowth of a colourful fruit.

[u/El_Grande_XL]

Its weird... But their manufacturing seems more hygenic then some food places in the city.

[u/bumbleeeeee]

That looks so interesting.