From Soma To Sharab: A Brief History Of Indian Alcohol

An Urdu couplet often attributed to Mirza Ghalib goes like this:

Zahid, sharab peenay de masjid mein baith kar / Ya voh jagah bata jahan par khuda na ho! (O pious one, let me drink wine in the mosque / or show me the place where God doesn’t exist!)

We do not know if Ghalib really wrote this, but anecdotes about the 19th-century Urdu poet’s love for whisky and rum sold in British army cantonments are legendary. Only — he wasn’t alone. Despite the social stigma associated with alcohol consumption in India, Indians’ love affair with alcoholic beverages goes back to the days of the Indus Valley civilisation circa 2000 BCE. Clay pots, distillation utensils, and vats recovered from IVC sites in both India and Pakistan all prove that people in the region were fermenting, brewing, and distilling wine, beer, and liquor using grains, fruits, and flowers even in prehistoric times.

The Rigveda — the oldest existing Indian literature — also mentions alcoholic beverages like ‘Soma’ and ‘Sura’. The ninth mandala of the Rigveda, known as the ‘Soma Mandala’, gives a meticulous account of how to harvest and process the now-lost Soma plant to make the hallucinogenic drink which was used in religious ceremonies as a ritual offering. But Soma and Sura are not the only alcoholic beverages mentioned in Vedic literature. Later texts like the Atharvaveda and the Yajurveda also mention ‘Kilala’, a beer-like beverage made from a cereal of the same name; ‘Masara’, or rice beer made from filtered rice gruel or kanji; and ‘Parisruta’, or fermented drinks made from the juices of certain flowers and grasses.

The list only grows from there. The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata mention several different types of wines, liquors, and spirits. Kautilya’s Arthashastra mentions twelve. And Charaka’s Samhita — an Ayurvedic treatise compiled between 400 BCE to 600 CE — lists a whopping 84 kinds of intoxicants made from grains, honey, sugarcane, grapes, mangoes, and mahua flowers. Adivasi tribes and communities across India continue to make traditional ferments and brews like Ara, Lohpani, and Mahua from these grains and flowers to this day, the same way their ancestors did.

Sculptures from the Gandhara region dated between 200 BCE and 300 CE frequently depict Bacchanalian drinking scenes and banquets with inebriated figures. And we know from extant literature from this period that the Indian nobility of this era also enjoyed imported wines made out of kapisyani (light grapes) and harihuraka (dark grapes) from lands as far and apart as Afghanistan and Rome. In fact, archeologists working in the Malabar coast have discovered remains of Roman amphorae used to store wine in modern-day Pattanam, Kerala, and now believe that the town may have been the location of the mythical port of Muziris mentioned in ancient Roman texts.

Even the abstinent Buddhists and Mughals were not impervious to the allure of Indian wines, spirits, and liquors. Despite religious diktats against the consumption of alcohol, Buddhist kings hosted festivals where they provided free alcoholic drinks to their subjects. Although prohibited by the injunctions of the Quran and other Islamic texts, wine-drinking and the patronage of finely crafted wine cups was an important part of the courtly cultures of Mughal emperors like Babur, Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan.

This love affair with alcoholic drinks continued well into the colonial era. The Portuguese added Feni — distilled from cashew fruits — to India’s list of beloved local liquors. And the British set up several distilleries in India to make rum for the British Indian Army. The first of these British distilleries opened in Kanpur in 1805 and by Independence, there were as many as 40 such distilleries across the country.

Today, the Indian alcoholic beverages industry is the third largest in the world, and homegrown gins like Greater Than and Hapusa, and single malt whiskies like Amrut, Indri, and Godawan are drawing a lot of attention to the untapped potential of Indian liquors and spirits. But while some brands are winning international acclaim, India’s heritage liquors remain the country’s best kept secrets.

Find out more about India's local liquors here.

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