Drunk on fresh air

The strong smell of cashew feni permeates the air these days. Even the cows stand around looking a little more dazed than usual, if not positively drunk. Must be all the cashew fruit fermenting in their stomachs.

While children go around with plastic bags, eagerly gathering the cashew nuts and tossing away the fruit, the adults are more keen on the rotting fruit, which is transformed into a potent alcoholic drink at home. Free booze!

But cashew feni stinks. What is much nicer is urak. This is a drink made from the first distillation of the fruit (or something like that). It's much less potent than feni. And really quite an exotic drink in its way.

If there is a problem it's only that everyone is making urak, and not everyone's urak tastes good. Also, since most people sell it on the sly so that they don't have to pay excise duty, you really don't know what you're getting in all those old Bisleri bottles.

I had my first taste of urak at Longuinhos, an old-time restaurant in Margao. A small shot cost four rupees. I like to buy the bottled stuff from them because – though it's a little more expensive – the stuff is more reliable since Longuinhos has been buying it from the same old supplier for donkey's years. The owner of the restaurant even told me what was the best way to drink it.

Add a few drops of lime juice and a dash of cold water and sip it slowly. There's a faint whiff of cashews, which is quite pleasant. And you get a nice, light buzz. Some people like to drink it with Sprite or some other lemony drink, but that would be like drinking Scotch with cola.

Like grappa in Italy, ouzo in Greece, schnapps in Germany and absinthe in the old days in France, urak is typically Goan. But sadly, the rich Goans don't take much pride in it. What it needs is a campaign to improve its image and promote it as an exotic, upmarket, lightly alcoholic drink.

The thing with urak is that it must always be drunk fresh, though it stays for a few days in the fridge. Once the cashew season is over, with the arrival of the Monsoons, it's not available at all. Until the next year.

The cows look sadder without it.