Goan beverages

When I mentioned I was in Goa, I got plenty of beer related messages on the book of faces. A friend of mine from Tennessee, of all places, pointed out a beer to me of which I was fully unaware! Shock! Horror! It's called King's. Mind you, this is NOT Kingfisher (which is not beer), but simply King's. It's a "Pilsner" even though it's definitely not made in the Czech Republic. Well, I should have known, it kinda sucked. I had my one Indian beer triumph in Mumbai (and got sick along with it). I shouldn't have expected two beer triumphs in a week. That is simply asking FAR too much, unless of course one is at GABF or Philly Beer Week...

So King's... It's just more of the same. Somewhat tasteless yellow fizzy beer called a "pilsner." I don't have much more to say, other than it's rather unmemorable.

Luckily for me, I had done my homework in other ways. Yes, Goa has a winery (Madera, not Madeira) and makes all the usuals, port, brandy, whiskey. The real treat for me was Fenny (pronounced FAY-NEE, not feh-nee). There are two types of Fenny. The first is made from cashew fruits, the second from coconuts.

If case you are in the dark, as I was, about cashews. They are fruits. Wikipedia, help me out here. The nut type thing we eat is one end of the cashew and the other end is a fruit. By the way, I do NOT recommend eating the cashew fruit before it is ripe... Experience tells me otherwise. It has some sort of funny numbing chemical in it, and I "burned" my tongue. Ah well, that what you get for eating forbidden fruit.

So, Fenny. The fruit part of the cashew is allowed to over ripen, then it is fermented into funny, strongly pungent fruit wine. At that point it is distilled twice into rocket fuel known as Fenny. It is usually cut from 80% to 30% with water, but it's kinda of strange. I definitely enjoyed it on a daily basis in Goa. It has a funny smell, and unless you've smelled cashew fruit, I can't describe the smell. Because it smells like ethanol and cashew fruit.

I was told repeatedly, not to smell it. Rubbish I say! It smells good, and tastes good too. However, I can see the appeal of making it a drink for mixing. So after some experimentation, Yvonne and I came up with a fantastic Fenny Cocktail.

Brew some extra strong black tea, then:

Black Tea + Fenny + Brandy + fruit juice (I recommend, pomegranate or apple) to taste.
Throw that bad boy in the fridge until it gets really cold, and drink it poolside. Voila.