It was one of those chance conversations that change the course of your life. In 2002, someone in Daman told Desmond Nazareth that a tribal spirit called Mahua imbibed in some parts of India was available in the vicinity. It was more like hearsay at that point in time; few city people had heard of it, fewer still had tasted it.
Yet, that chance remark captivated Nazareth and he set off on a quest to check out this potion for himself. Well, he eventually found and tasted a crude version of it in Silvassa and realised it had been hiding in plain sight all along.
The mahua tree is found all over the plains and forests of Central India and the spirit is distilled from the dried flowers of this tree. These flowers are naturally sweet to the taste and the tree is found only in India.“I eventually realized I was on to something potentially huge. Unlike countries like Mexico where there is a national drink, India has nothing that comes close. Of course, there are alcoholic beverages like feni or toddy exclusive to a particular region, but there isn’t a single drink of a pan-Indian nature on the market,” he says.
Many years after his initiation to Mahua, Nazareth began delving deeper into the myriad wonders of this naturally sweet flower. He first distilled it into a spirit and then later transformed that into a liqueur, in the process coming to realise its versatility had immense potential, if only it was effectively tapped.Mahua is crafted from the dried mahua flower. These little pellets which are sweet to the taste can be described as a cross between a very sun-dried raisin and an equally sun-dried fig.
In almost every part of Central India, this spirit is made by tribal women who create just about enough for local consumption using rather slipshod means. The resulting concoction after a single distillation is a cloudy liquid.Nazareth foresaw the amazing potential behind this untapped resource and currently believes he has only skimmed its surface. “The possibilities are endless and can be harnessed in a myriad ways,” he says.
Needless to say, once he decided to go about manufacturing this floral wonder officially, he knew it could not be done the usual way. “Hygiene of course takes precedence when we are producing on a commercial scale. Unlike the locals, we do not gather fallen flowers off the forest floor. Sheets are used to catch them as they fall from the tree, after which they are hygienically dried,” he says.The process of drying sees the flowers turn brown and shrivel up.
“The trick is to brown them without burning them and achieve a carmelised effect. This requires about 3-4 days of drying,” says Nazareth. This is then processed into the colourless liquid that that could one day be India’s national drink.Even though the Mahua spirit is made all over Central India as a country spirit, right now Goa and Karnataka are the only states which allow it to be sold in stores.
Nazareth sources the flowers from Orissa, manufactures the spirit in Andhra Pradesh and bottles it in Goa. “Hopefully, Maharashtra and Pondicherry will be next,” says Nazareth who is currently fielding enquiries about export possibilities.
However, it hasn’t been easy going ‘from the forest to the bottle’. Desmond who fought long and hard to get state authorities to legalise his take on the drink says there is no nurturing of innovation in India and that there is a bias towards the ‘big players in the industry’ and a tendency to suppress that which one is ignorant of.
Nazareth sees way beyond the making of official mahua. He feels harnessing various by-products of the tree can set in motion CSR activities that would benefit the tribals who have been the unwitting guardians of this national treasure.
BOX1: Brewers & ShakersAt a crafts expo in 2018, Desmond Nazareth met Ajay Nagarajan, CEO of Windmills Craftworks, Bengaluru and realised they had many common values and interests in crafting alcohol and encouraging people who were passionate about their interests.“Talking with Desmond it was easy to see why he was passionate about Mahua. He knew he was onto something and he wanted to share it with the like-minded. Our meeting was a union of ideas,” says Nagarajan who invited Nazareth to showcase Mahua at Windmills. Though the Mahua Festival recently concluded at Windmills, the cocktails crafted for the event are still on the menu. Thanks to the versatile nature of this fascinating liquid, ingredients like wasabi, rosemary, blood orange puree, brine, bell peppers, cranberry juice and cucumbers could find their way into a long, tall glass of something absolutely special.
PHOTOS:
Cutline: The man and his magic: Desmond Nazareth with bottled Mahua spirit and liqueur (use pic-Desmond Nazareth)
Cutline: Mahua marvels: Battle of Mahua, Bloody Maria and Twisted Tom – mahua cocktails at Windmills
Cutline: Mesmerisers: Dried petals of the mahua flower (use pic-pellets1, pellets2)
