So how do they brew this magical and mysterious concoction? We picked the mind of Hansel Vaz, and his reservoir of wisdom spilled the secrets behind a good Feni. The founder of Cazulo Feni and owner of the world’s first-ever Feni cellar in the world, Hansel gave us insights into the Naked Feni and why it is cherished by Goans. We couldn’t help but be fascinated!
So let’s begin right at the start, when Feni didn’t exist in Goa. That was until the Portuguese colonists trudged in with their chillies, potatoes, tomatoes and... cashews! Yes! Cashew came to Goa all the way from Brazil. The goal was to prevent topsoil erosion with the trees during Goa’s heavy monsoons. Who knew it’d spread its roots straight into our hearts!
To begin with, the cashew apples are collected when they ripen in March and fall off the trees by pickers known as cazkars. Next, they’re crushed by stomping on them. This is done on a basin cut of rock called the colmbi. The juice is then transferred into a mud pot which is buried in the earth for three days to ferment the juice. The pulp that remains after squashing the fruit is used to extract Neero, a refreshing nonalcoholic summer beverage.
These earthen pots are almost 1 - 1.5 metres long in diameter, thin like eggshells, and hence extremely light and easily breakable. Known as kodem or bhann these pots are no longer made and the ones used currently have all been unearthed by careful and tedious digging from older distilleries! What’s more, according to Vaz, his distillery is one of the only two that use these pots to make feni; others use plastic drums.
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