Offbeat Goa: How to drink feni like a pro

It is blisteringly hot outside. Perched inside the car I wonder if this is a good decision at all. In the April heat, I will be walking outdoors and sipping a strong local country liquor — feni. I want to learn how is feni made and how to drink feni. In my quest to find offbeat Goa (I write from the perspective of a non-local obviously) I have signed myself and husfriend for a feni-pairing experience offered by Fazenda Cazulo and showcased in the app Urbanaut. It is called the “Floating Feni” experience.

Our car rolls into a forest area and drops us in a place that looks like the middle of nowhere. We enter through the non-descript gate and follow the mud path. All around us are big trees with thick trunks. There are mangoes, cashews, and other trees we cannot identify. Soon I see the shed and the distillery that I had seen in pictures.

Fazenda Cazulo: The ones who teach how to drink feni

Brand Fazenda Cazulo is owned by Hansel Vaz, an individual whose interest and research has contributed to cashew feni getting the GI tag in the year 2009. The distillery where the Floating Feni experience is conducted had been adopted by Hansel some 5 years back. Though the operations are run by Hansel, the trees, plants, and the property belong to someone else. The distillery and the farm has been there since centuries and no one can pinpoint a year or date of its origin.

We sit in a chair below the shade of a leafy tree and someone from the team brings us a welcome drink, a pink beverage—urraca or urrak flavoured with peaflower extract. Soon after, Aaron, a feni enthusiast and team member of Fazenda Cazulo joins us to give the guided tour. He introduces ‘urrak’ to us as the first distill of cashew. Before we learn how to drink feni, he teaches us about how to drink urrak. This drink is available only in the summer months and has a super short shelf life. Every Goan has access to locally brewed urrak. It is not a drink that hits supermarket shelves but it is a drink that gets distributed in close knit circles when friends, families and neighbours meet during summer months.

The farm that grows the cashew fruits for feni

Aaron next takes us into the field. Cashew trees stand on gentle slopes. The fruit bearing branches have drooped down due to the weight and are grazing the ground. These are ‘Vengurla’ variety of cashew trees. It is a hybrid type with life span around 25 years. They are bushy and do not grow to be very tall. The other variety is the ‘Bali’ type, they grow as big as mango trees. We had already seen some Bali cashew trees standing side by side with the mango trees while entering the property. North Goa has more Vengurla whereas south has more of Bali variety.

Apparently, the cashew nut is not of interest here as feni is brewed from the fruits or cashew apples. On smelling the cashew leaves I get a whiff of mangoes. Cashew apples have a toxin that produces irritation and itch— a reason why pests, birds and animals could never eat the fruits or take refuge in the trees. The farmers who come for harvesting wear long sleeved clothing as well.

Cashew apples are never plucked from the trees. Goan summer afternoons are blessed with a soothing cool breeze. During this time the ripe fruits fall naturally. The harvesters who come around 3 o’ clock collect the fallen fruits with a pointy stick called kantor and they drop it into a bucket. Then the freshly fallen fruits go to the stomping platform.

Marching on the fruits of feni

On a stone platform the cashew apples are stomped on by stompers wearing gumboots. To prevent slipping and maintain balance and grip, the stompers hold on to two ropes. Stomping releases the juice that is cloudy and contains a lot of tannins. “It is sweet but consuming it instantly would give a sore throat next day,” says Aaron.

Once this is done, the remnants of stomped fruits are collected and they are placed under a heavy rock. Slowly, the juice flows out. It becomes a slow press. This clear juice is very refreshing and is relished by the locals. The labour force of the distillery and locals come to collect this juice every evening. “We not charge them anything. The distillery has been doing this for the community for years, from long before we adopted them and we would not like to change this,” says Aaron.

Fermenting feni

We now move to a patch of clearing where many earthen pots are planted midway into the ground in a semicircle. These are called matheche bhann in Konkani. The freshly pressed juice of the cashew fruits goes into these pots for fermentation. On pressing my ears close to the pots, I even hear the bubbling noise of fermentation.

The pots are one of a kind, made of iron-rich mud sourced from the hills. These are 80-90 years old pots made by artisan families whose descendants have now abandoned the profession. What makes it interesting is that they made the pot without any spinning wheel! The pot remained in stationary and the potter went around with his hand inside the pot to give it shape. By looking at the shape and size of the pots it can be guessed that the potters must have been very tall and thin to have such long forearms.

Since the quality of feni is not affected by the type of container it is fermented in, no effort has been put into reverse engineer these pots. If broken, the plan is to replace them by plastic pots. (After my visit a brutal storm has broken many of these pots.)

The forno and the condensation tank

In the distillation shed, a fire blazes when distillation is ongoing. It is called a forno in Konkani. The fermented cashew juice is heated and the vapour is channeled through a copper pipe. This pipe goes through a water bath or condensation tank which facilitates distillation.

They also have a laoni pot to show demo to visitors about laoni feni preparation. Laonis are an indigenous Konkani community who used to make pots. Instead of having a condensation tank, they used to pour water as the alcohol boiled to generate condensation of the vapour. It is a physically arduous process and obviously the quantity would be too less to satisfy demand.

Like wine, terroir matters a lot when it comes to feni. The alcohol percentage in feni can vary between 40%-46%, so it is completely possible that feni from different parts of Goa tastes different. At Fazenda Cazulo, the alcohol percentage in feni is always maintained at 42.8%.

Apparently, Anthon, the expert distiller of this distillery, can do this easily even without a hydrometre. He just observes the size of bubbles and the time duration of how long the bubble is there! The water content in feni is the water from the juice itself—the reason why feni has flavour.

After showing us the forno, Aaron then takes us to a room full of very large glass bottles— garrafoes. They are collected from various sources in Goa. Back in the days the bottles had been used to store wines, gins and even medicines! I hear that this room had seen several transitions, from an Arabian horse stable to a chicken pen to now a museum of sorts.

How to drink feni like a pro

We now move onto the most exciting part of the experience—finally we will learn how to drink feni— the tasting session! We follow Aaron down a dirt part and soon reach a staircase. It runs down to a pond. In the shallow water of the pond a table has been set with feni and delicacies. We dip our feet into the ankle-deep water and walk on the pebbles to reach the chairs. Soon after we settle, schools of fish come to nibble the dead skin off our feet. Above me coconut palms sway. Such a supremely relaxing set up!

We try cashew feni neat and coconut feni neat. Then we try dukhshiri, a coconut feni made from roots of Indian Sarsaparilla. There is also Patoleo cocktail—a traditional Goan dessert whose recipe has been broken down and transformed into a cocktail.

The tasting platter has fruits—red apple, green apple, cherry tomatoes, karanda, guava, orange, sweet lime, acid lime, capcicum, olives, pineapple, carrot and cucumber. The Goan sweets selection platter included — pinagr, sunnas, doce, til ladoo and perad(also known as guava cheese). Chikkis, cashew nut, anjeer, figs and Snickers also feature here. On the spicy side there are pickles, green chilli and peppercorns. A smorgasbord of chutney sandwich and prawn fritters also rule the table. We are even served bee pollen!

Now the pairing part is where the fun happens. As guided by Aaron, we mix and match, swirl feni in our mouths, smell, and employ almost every sense organ to make the experience what it is! We both are tipsy at the end of the floating feni experience but it is one of the best INR 2500 we have ever spent! Non-Goans are constantly badmouthing feni. Mostly they drink questionable shady liquor in the name of feni. Maybe it is time you ditch your prejudice and learn all about feni firsthand.

Details:

• Price: INR 2500 per head (prepaid)
• Duration : 2-3 hours
• Location: Near Cuelim, Goa.
• How to book: Search for the Floating Feni experience on Urbanaut app or just get in touch with Hansel Vaz (@fenidotor) or Fazenda Cazulo on Instagram.

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