With Goa’s green hills covered with fruit bearing trees like
‘kantta’, ‘chunna’, jackfruit and mangoes, one fruit that takes the lead in the
beginning of summer is the remarkable cashew. The aroma of ripe cashew fruit
travels wide, tempting you to reach out and pluck the juicy fruit that works
wonders in quenching your thirst in the summer heat. While cashew plantation
owners are possessive over their trees, there is a strong reason behind it. The
fruit is used for the extraction of ‘niro’ which is further distilled to urrack
and finally distilled to feni.
It is a different experience to see how the plantation
workers painstakingly collect the cashews, deseed the fruit and stomp them to
make ‘niro’, the fruity and fresh cashew juice. For Umesh Ankush Sawant from
Sarvan, Bicholim every cashew he comes across from the 150 cashew trees that he
owns is a gift of God. He has been running a Cashew Feni Distillery for the
past 23 years and has seen how the industry has grown and the change in
attitude towards drinking.
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Urrack is a local liquor made from distilled cashew juice.
It is much lighter compared to cashew feni as feni is produced by the double
distillation of cashew juice or re-distilling urrack. “Urrack is fresh as it is
the first distillation from the cashew juice, ‘niro’, while feni is pure
distilled. Feni, when mixed with certain chemicals, can be very harmful for the
drinker and has to be drunk in moderation. The change in climatic conditions is
also having an effect on the production of cashews. The yield has decreased
over the years but the demand for liquor is the same,” says Umesh.
A speciality that has made Umesh famous is his flavoured
feni. He has 11 flavours to offer which include coffee, jamun, masala, kirayte,
ganjan (lime grass), jeera (cumin seeds), garlic, ginger, badishep (fennel
seeds), apple and sweet lime. Through the distillery, Umesh’s main focus is on
the production of feni though he keeps aside a few litres of urrack for those
who approach him directly. “There is a shortage of labour as today’s youngsters
don’t want to work with cashews. They feel that their hands and legs will smell,
though there isn’t any hesitation while drinking the urrack and feni with their
friends. The demand is there but very few want to keep the tradition of making
feni alive.”
Mac Vaz of Madame Rosa emphasises on the importance of
drinking in moderation. “Urrack is the celebration of harvest with the goodness
of cashew. Urrack is good for first timers and people who are connoisseurs of
Goan spirit. However, I believe that drinking should be in moderation and with
responsibility. I don’t like songs that are sung promoting drinking or
overindulgence in the state as it Goa in a bad light,” says Mac, who recently
introduced a new brand of feni, ‘Lembranca’.
Clearing the myth about the taste of urrack changing after
summer, Mac explains, “It is believed that the flavour of urrack changes in the
monsoon; that the fruitiness gets diluted. But in actuality, urrack is a summer
drink best enjoyed in the heat but the flavour remains intact throughout the
year. It is like drinking a Limca in summer and drinking it in the monsoon.”
