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Being a college student, my liquor palette is strictly limited to Old Monk, Bro Code, and Magic Moments. When we're feeling a little indulgent, the farthest we expand our horizons to is Smirnoff. When I discovered a centuries-old homegrown liquor is making a comeback, I was overjoyed by the possibility of not drinking hand sanitizer anymore. Once dismissed as ‘country liquor,’ mahua is now stepping into the limelight.
For centuries, India’s indigenous tribes — Baiga, Gond, Santhal, Oraon — have revered the mahua tree as the ‘Tree of Life.’ The flowers, fruits, and leaves of the tree provide sustenance, medicine, and spiritual significance. Brewed from this is mahua liquor, a floral, slightly smoky spirit made by fermenting and distilling mahua blossoms.
Colonial rule and post-independence regulations nearly erased this tradition. In the late 1800s, the British banned mahua distillation, branding it a ‘dangerous intoxicant’ and limiting indigenous communities from producing or selling it. The goal? To monopolise India’s alcohol industry with imported spirits. Even after India’s independence in 1947, the stigma persisted, and mahua remained heavily restricted under archaic liquor laws.
That began to change in 2021, when Madhya Pradesh officially recognised mahua as a heritage liquor, paving the way for its return to the mainstream. Today, multiple brands are working to reintroduce mahua to the world, blending traditional knowledge with modern distillation techniques.
Mahua distillation follows a process refined over centuries. Dried mahua flowers — naturally rich in sugar — are soaked in water and left to ferment. Wild yeast, often carried over from previous batches, kickstarts fermentation, which takes about five days in the summer and longer in colder months. The fermented mash is then distilled, resulting in a smooth, fragrant liquor with floral and earthy notes.
Brands like Mond, DesmondJi, and Native Brews are elevating mahua to premium status. Mond, distilled by tribal self-help groups in Madhya Pradesh, is India’s first fully tribal-produced mahua spirit. DesmondJi, a Goa-based craft brand, introduced Mahua Spirit and Mahua Liqueur in 2018. Native Brews has been working on scaling mahua’s production while preserving its traditional identity.
For decades, mahua was dismissed, restricted, and nearly erased from India’s mainstream culture. But its comeback is rewriting history — from prohibition to prestige; from the fringes to fine dining. This is history in a bottle.
As I prepare to graduate and hopefully retire my relationship with bottom-shelf liquor, I’m relieved to know that India’s craft spirit scene has something homegrown to offer. If I’m going to spend my hard-earned money on quality alcohol, it might as well be on something with a story — something like mahua.
