Rum University Library
An Unholy Brew -
Alcohol in Indian History and Religion
An Unholy Brew
Author: James McHugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press 2021
Reviewed by: Marco Pierini
Here, at last, a serious, scholarly, well-written work about alcohol history, “a literary and intellectual history of drinking” in pre-modern India.
First, they fermented grains:
“Surā is the alcoholic drink mentioned in the earliest Indic sources, such as the Ṛgveda. Although, as noted,” Surā”(f.) has a number of meanings, in its narrowest sense it refers to a fermented alcoholic drink made from grains. Thus, as in ancient Mesopotamia, the primary alcoholic drink in the earliest Indian written sources was made from grains. … Although largely absent from surveys of alcohol history, and confusing to many scholars of early India, surā as made from grains was highly developed as a drink and discussed in many texts in pre-modern India.”
Later, also sugarcane was used:
“Drinks made from sugarcane are a notable feature of the early alcohol culture of South Asia. By the early first millennium CE, such drinks were consumed alongside grain surās, grape wine, and betel nur; they form part of a distinctive intoxicant culture of the region. Unlike in Europe, where sugarcane products have been known from only a comparatively recent period, sugarcane was well known in ancient India before the Common Era. Sanskrit texts mention several varieties of sugarcane, as well as numerous products derived from sugarcane juice. These variety of sugars, can be confusing to scholars, particularly as most people who speak only a European language don’t possess words form many of this products (though sugar specialists, of course, have more expansive vocabulary for their field). These many words attest to a complex sugar culture in India, much of which survives to this day. … The drink primarily made from sugarcane juice, raw or cooked, was called sīdhu (also śīdhu), though sugarcane products were also used in many other drinks … Some types of sīdhu were made with other, more refined sugar products, but the basic version may well have been made simply with the juice. The drink was not distilled, so sīdhu is not rum.”
To sum up, “People in India manufactured a huge number of alcoholic drinks, managing the processes of obtaining sugars, fermentation, and flavoring in ingenious ways. Whether one approves of drinking or not, one can’t deny that there should always be a chapter about pre-modern Indian drinks in any world history of alcohol.”
And distillation?
“So when did alcoholic distillation appear in South Asia? The earliest explicit description of alcoholic distillation that I am aware of is from a medical text, the Gadanigraha by Sodala, a Gujarati, dating from around 1200 CE. In this text one āsava recipe describes the distillation of an “arka”, a Sanskritized word derived from Arabic to describe a distillate. … It is absolutely clear that a distillation is described here and that the liquid distilled is a fermented, sugar-based drink, so this is alcoholic distillation (of a specialized medicine, not a common liquor)”
I am greatly indebted to this book. It has shed some light on a world largely unknown to me and has given me new, important information on my favorite issue, the Origins of Alcoholic Distillation and of Rum; we will get back to that.
Review by Marco Pierini
