Coconut feni tapped out of Canacona’s bars

Photo Credits: OPED lead

Canacona: Goa’s celebrated indigenously made coconut feni (maad) is history or almost so. Now, make your pick. It could be anything from sugar feni and jaggery feni to the more deadly industrial alcohol ethanol feni or rectified spirit (RS) feni, Ammonium Chloride feni, Zinc Chloride feni etc. You may be a closeted coconut feni patron or the out in the open type but beware there is an exceptionally good chance that your coconut feni may not be feni at all, but rather something dangerous that comes camouflaged in multiple flavours – jeera, alem, orange, zambla and doodsuri.

While official figures provided by the Goa Toddy Tappers Association suggest that there are 34 registered toddy tappers in Canacona, preliminary field investigations reveal that there are less than 10 toddy tappers still hanging on quite literally to their old passion. It is common knowledge that there are hardly any toddy tappers left at least not enough to meet the toddy demand of the 29 coconut distilleries operating in Canacona.

Feni vs the new entrants

While coconut feni is abundantly available in almost every bar and tavern in Goa, particularly south Goa, you hardly see any toddy tappers left to ply the perilous trade that involves scaling the long-winding palm trees three times a day come rain or storm. The flock of feni drinkers is shrinking as most of the coconut feni sold in Goa is known to be spurious or adulterated. “I loved my coconut feni for 30 long years, now I dread it,” says a septuagenarian.

Jacki Fernandes, a former toddy tapper from Palolem, partly blames the Goa Toddy Tappers Association (GTTA) for the plight of toddy tappers and coconut feni. “Show me a market for indigenously made genuine coconut feni and I will readily plunge back into my old passion even considering today’s pressing constraints.” he says, adding, “In the good old days we took our coconut feni to the Goa Toddy Tappers Association office at Margao where bidders came and we sold our produce to the highest bidder. Coconut feni then was used as essence for almost all Indian Made Foreign Liquors (IMFL) in Goa. Later when our trade was affected by jaggery feni the GTTA was only a mute spectator to the invasion. But it is the entry of the sharks of industrial alcohol that spelt the death knell for indigenous coconut feni as GTTA meekly surrendered ,Jackie adds.

It is true that among other considerations, it was primarily tourism that spelt the death knell for toddy tapping and genuine feni in Palolem. Toddy tappers fancy tourism for its high returns. Coconut trees are now cut down for hotel construction and the bhattis converted into tourist rooms. But elsewhere in Canacona it was not the tourism mega bucks that kicked out the distilleries. An out of work distillery owner, preferring anonymity, states, “In the 90s there was large scale production of spurious liquor – a concoction made with industrial alcohol for smuggling into neighbouring Karnataka – that spelt doom for indigenously made feni. Later spurious liquor found its way into local bars for as less as Rs 400 a Kolso (18 bottles) compared to indigenously made coconut Feni for Rs 720 a Kolso.”

Corruptions ugly hand

“The Goa government and its Excise Department’s widespread corruption and patronage of the distilleries which manufacture spurious liquor have literally pushed the old and revered hands of seasoned feni distillers out of business.” says Soccoro Fernandes. The Excise Department-illicit liquor baron nexus came into focus when an excise department raid confiscated around 6,000 litres of illegal liquor at Shelim-Loliem, Canacona, in July 2010. One of the arrested persons, John Menz, an employee of the liquor unit blew the lead during interrogation and revealed that an excise inspector was in the know of the activities of the unit. Following the disclosure, then excise commissioner P S Reddy had initiated an inquiry on whether the excise inspector was part of the entire racket.

Corruption, government apathy, greener pastures or a new generation conscious of the stigma associated with the then sacred trade, coconut feni is almost a closed chapter in Goa’s rich and varied history. For 2015, 29 coconut distilleries with 303 (allegedly) toddy tapped trees may seem encouraging to the uninitiated despite the marked and steady decline from 2000. But as everyone knows by now ‘official figures’ is one thing while ground reality is altogether a different matter that should be a matter of grave concern.

Ironic as it is, today, with the changing perception of the social stigma associated with drinking feni, even those who saw themselves too noble to be seen drinking it in public and drank it only within the privacy of their homes yearn for it now but to no avail. Once a ready elixir for all Goans -- rural or urban -- to treat many common ailments like common cold, fresh wounds, stomach upset, etc., feni was a part of the Goan identity. That identity is slowly withering, coconut tree by coconut tree.