A new book shows how colonialism influenced India’s preferences in alcohol

Wine had long ago found its way to the east coast of India in Greek amphoras with the early traders, finding favour with the locals, who were soon disappointed to learn that grapes could not be grown along the Malabar coastline. Moreover, wine did not keep well, turning rancid in the heat and humidity. Soon enough, an alternate surfaced; madeira, a strong, sweet wine produced in the volcanic island by the same name in Portugal, began to be imported to India. Madeira proved to be the wine maverick, actually benefiting from the intense weather in the subcontinent, with gin and whisky being rare imports. “Gentlemen always took special care to be supplied with the best French wines and the oldest Madeira that could be purchased.” The added advantage was that women too could drink wines like madeira while they weren’t permitted other spirits.

Naturally, trading in madeira took off in a big way. What started off as an import of 100 pipes of liquor ended up becoming 6,400 pipes by the end of the seventeenth century, accounting for 40 per cent of all liquor sales in Madras (now Chennai). Back in Portugal, even conservative traders were “forced to accept Indian contracts and develop bases in that part of the world or face bankruptcy.” But madeira was not the only thing the Portuguese introduced to India. Many of the staples that are taken for granted today, like potatoes, tomatoes, chillies, pineapples and the cashew nut, were bought to India by the Portuguese. Cashew, which is native to Brazil, was introduced to India as early as 1514. The cashew apple, which is not commonly consumed due to its astringent taste, proved to be an excellent source for distillation and was easily transformed into a unique and potent local Goan brew called feni, whose very name has Indian roots. It is believed to be derived from the Sanskrit word phena, which means “froth”, thanks to the bubbles that form a light froth when feni is poured into a glass.

Blessed with a long shelf life and now labelled as a “heritage drink”, feni today is made from both coconut and cashew nut fruits, used as a base for many a cocktail and a favourite drink of the local Goans.

The Portuguese had gotten a head start in the lucrative business of exporting calico cloth and indigo from India, but the Dutch were not far behind, trading a lot more in spices than cotton along the Malabar Coast. And close on the heels of the Portuguese and the Dutch were the British. While the Jesuit missions at the Mughal court assumed the character and function of an embassy and of neutrality, the intention was to further the interests of the Portuguese, whose power was already on the decline.

The watchful British were close at hand to seize the opportunity.

When Queen Elizabeth I signed a charter for a new trading mandate named the East India Company on New Year’s Eve in 1600, little could she have imagined that the Company would become the driving force behind British economic development for over 250 years. The company’s revenues would far exceed those of the Crown and its achievements would become the mainstay of British history; were it not for the machinations of the EIC, there would have been no empire, nor the resultant Commonwealth.

The treaty obtained in 1618 from the Mughal emperor Jahangir opened the ports of India to trade, and by the end of the century, the EIC’s influence had spread throughout most of India, and the foundation was laid for the British Empire.

Trade flourished, as did personal fortunes; the Mughal kings, inundated with expensive gifts from Europe, gave away more and more trade sanctions. Factories were set up at Surat and Bombay (now Mumbai), as were the British conclaves Fort St George and Fort William, bringing in more and more adventurous Englishmen into India.

Alcohol was inherently linked to the EIC, which brought in as well as traded in various alcoholic beverages, such as claret, port and madeira. The officers of EIC were notorious for their capacity to drink, frequently arousing the wrath of the Court of Directors back in London. As demand and consumption rose, brewers in Britain started to make ales especially suited to the rigours of the voyage and the heat of the colonies, giving birth to the “India pale ale”.

And then there was gin.

Back in Europe, the Netherlands was struggling for independence from Spain, where English soldiers were sent to assist the Dutch revolt. This is apparently where they first got their taste for a drink made from the Juniper berry that the troops drank before going into battle, for “Dutch courage”. This Dutch–English collaboration produced an enduring drink, called “gin” for short – 40 per cent alcohol primarily flavoured with Juniper berries as well as a variety of herbs and spices. The gin craze spread like wildfire in Britain, so much so that the Parliament had to pass a law imposing a tax on the drink, which ended in riots.

The other half of Britain that wasn’t drunk on gin was busy setting up the empire halfway across the world. The sudden influx of a large number of Britons who migrated to India obviously brought their favourite tipple gin with them as well. The struggling EIC had a number of their staff, soldiers in particular, getting infected with malaria and dying. So, the rather serendipitous “discovery” of the cinchona tree bark and its active ingredient, quinine, as a treatment and preventive measure for malaria, led Britian to ship quinine powder in massive quantities to its Indian colonies. The concoction, though, was so bitter that most people were loath to take it. That is until the British soldiers started adding lime, sugar and water to the quinine, giving birth to Indian tonic water. Winston Churchill is supposed to have said, “Gin & Tonic has saved more English lives and souls than all the doctors in the Empire.” Whether he actually said it or not is moot, but gin and tonic was and remains a legacy of the Raj.

Apart from gin, quinine too played a huge role in Britain’s global dominance. By manufacturing tonic water and supplying it to their colonies prone to malarial fever and other ailments, they ensured that their administration of the colonies stayed intact and healthy. In her widely acclaimed and highly detailed book Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Gardens, author Lucile Brockway contends that the control of cinchona – and thus quinine – was key to the expansion of Britain in Asia and Africa. Gin and tonic soon enough became a staple among soldiers and gentry alike, especially in the exclusive British gymkhana clubs that remains a rather romantic reminder of the Empire.

Excerpted with permission from Toddy to Tequila: The Story of Alcohol in India, Sandhya Mulchandani, Juggernaut.