Goa's Secret History of Barrel-Aged Feni
Hansel Vaz, founder of Cazulo Premium Feni writes about Goa‘s old but secret history of barrel-aged feni; wood and craft tailored to suit the tropical, spicy bouquet of feni and the region's sultry summer and heavy monsoon. Unique barrels that hold a small, but integral piece of Goan history.
On a dry summer evening in May, the Haldancar family of Valpoi, Goa — renowned for their popular and trusted Cajulana brand of feni — witnessed a horrifying, all-consuming fire, ravage an entire warehouse of feni, a bottling plant, and decades of official paperwork. There may have been no injuries reported that evening, but the financial loss and personal trauma the family suffered is unimaginable. The following morning, just one newspaper, a vernacular daily, covered the fire; others made a passing reference, choosing instead to focus on politically important visitors who made token visits. Despite its rich history and deep connection with its birthplace Goa, feni struggles to attract substantial press coverage.
In the Haldancar warehouse, unnoticed and buried in the embers, lies a precious family heirloom — a meaningful and irreplaceable piece of feni heritage — lost forever, reduced to ashes — seven vintage wooden barrels that stored and aged feni.
The ageing of spirits has been in vogue for a long time. From fine whiskies to craft beers, every spirit maker hopes to add that extra element: deeper flavour, rich character, or even just a different kind of wood, to help his spirit stand apart. Some of these are superficial attempts to spin narratives, because everyone loves a good story. A few years ago, cashew feni joined the fray. A couple of ambitious feni houses began to experiment with ageing cashew feni in oakwood. However, my close confidant, mentor and friend, Regan Henriques of Rhea Distilleries, was nothing less than thorough in his endeavour. He imported planks of American oak, and painstakingly, through trial and error, learned to cooper his own barrels. He even made his own sherry for that sweet sherry finish. The end product was intriguing, and his Oak-Aged Cashew Feni became a lively topic of debate among the perennially leery feni aficionados of Goa. Regan hadn’t simply redrawn the sacred boundaries that define cashew feni; he had uncorked endless possibilities for our industry. Regan courageously demonstrated the most serious innovation anyone ever attempted, and it literally opened up a barrel of opportunities for cashew feni.
Situated at the centre of the globe, Goa or as it was then known — Estado da India — was an integral part of the Portuguese empire, and a cultural melting pot for the Far East, Africa, Brazil and Europe. It is hard to fathom that despite four centuries of colonial culture, feni did not have to access the European expertise of oak-ageing spirits. Some believe there may have been a sustained and deliberate colonial subversion at play, to downgrade feni as a drink of the poor, in the face of Portuguese wine, port and macieira. But this hypothesis does not sit well with me simply because each of these alcoholic beverages is so distinctly different — in production style, nature and taste preference. It is comparing apples and oranges. Another commonly peddled highbrow narrative suggests that feni is akin to hooch — unworthy of oak ageing at all. This would be terribly prejudiced. Feni has seen at least 300 years of continuous consumption; a crude rotgut could never have endured this test of time and taste, particularly with so many aficionados! It would thus be extraordinary to assume that feni was the only spirit in the world not to play with wood! The logistics of sourcing and importing wooden barrels should been easier when we were one empire, so there must have been at least one producer who did experiment; perhaps this was simply not recorded? To get to the bottom of this, I went sleuthing down local villages and old distilleries, literally knocking on people’s doors looking for leads. I quickly found that probing questions only lead to oblique answers, even if I was a full-blooded local!
I realised soon, that I was searching on the wrong side of Goa: I had to go east, comb the hilly and cooler regions of Sattari, Bicholim, and Sanguem. Tourists rarely visit the eastern side of Goa, and if not for feni, it is likely the locals wouldn’t either! In the Western Ghats of north-eastern Goa is an old town called Valpoi, coined from two words: ‘val’ meaning meandering stream, and ‘poi’ meaning other side. These rolling hills are full of cashew orchards, making Valpoi the single largest cashew feni producing region in the world, and earning its title, ‘Feni Capital of Goa’. Once in a while, an exceptional, even inspiring, cashew feni does show up. But for the most part, the region is better known for the large volumes they produce.
I clearly remember my first evening there. I had come to inspect a distillery, but the distiller insisted I follow etiquette: first sample the feni, then conduct the inspection. He led me into a dilapidated building. the room was crammed, and the air was thick with angel’s share. The light bulb was out, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. But nothing in the world could prepare me for what I saw. There were five of the most enormous wooden barrels, rolled tightly against each other, squatting in silent solitude. Compared to these, a regular whisky cask or wine barrel would be petite; each of these barrels could seat two grown men comfortably within. The feeling was ethereal; these were not simply old wooden barrels that lay before me; these were the guardians of generations’ of distilling knowledge; the keepers of feni’s deepest secrets. “Am’cheo burrel’a!” he thundered, proudly showing off his barrels.
Barrel ageing is an art as much as it is a science — you cannot store feni in just any barrel, and expect aged feni to spring out in a few years. Feni, unlike other spirits, has a tropical, spicy flavour and pungent fruity bouquet — difficult to pair with flavours from wood. Ageing also depends entirely on climate, wood type and construction style of the barrel. Goa’s humid tropical seaside climate, heavy monsoon and sultry summer, make for less than ideal conditions because the maturation process speeds up in the tropics, leaching tannins that impart colour and flavourings much faster. Consequently, conditions are more difficult to control. In cooler parts of the world, this process is slower and easier to manage. However, the devil is in the details — these barrels are built differently. The construction style and size are similar to large port pipes seen commonly in Porto — reinforcing the profound Portuguese cultural conjunction that we still share. Large barrels reduce the ‘wood-spirit contact ration’ which is fundamental to controlling flavour and colour. Pitching the youngest to be at least 70 years old and the oldest close to a 100, these handcrafted wooden barrels were clearly well past their flavour-imparting life. Nevertheless, still eager, I tasted feni out of each of the five barrels, looking for uniqueness in the season’s cashew feni each time. There wasn’t much on offer in terms of flavour, and there was at best, a slight variation from one barrel to another. But the cashew feni definitely tended to taste softer, often older, than its actual vintage.
Workers at the Fazenda Cazulo bringing down a harvest of cashew from the orchard on the hill
Photo credit: Edric George
Storage in wooden barrels, or ‘burrel’ as they are called here, must be Goa’s best-kept feni secret. Like mushrooms, barrels too are left in the dark, with few people ever laying eyes on them, and fewer still speaking about them. Interestingly, every burrel owner I encountered employs these primarily as storage vessels, without any intention of maturation or ageing. Back in the day, barrels were a common sight at distilleries; rounded in shape and less delicate, workers could roll them around easily, lending them an edge over breakable clay or stoneware. Though this culture has been around since Portuguese times, today it hangs by a thread. Producers seek increasingly cheap and convenient alternatives to manage their storage volumes. Over the years, only a small clutch of feni-makers in rural eastern Goa still persist, preferring to use these wooden barrels as the favoured storage vessel for cashew feni. Unlike their other feni associates, these cashew feni producers didn’t swap wooden barrels for big glass carafes called garrafão. It is incredible that these producers went against the grain and held out, because throughout feni history, there have been multiple instances in time when feni-makers swapped storage vessels for newer ones; delicate stoneware pots were replaced with wooden barrels, then the stubby old burrel made way for dainty glass garrafão, and now that the glass garrafão have become scarce and precious, feni producers have replaced nearly all their big carafes for easily available and cheaper, (if rather grotesque looking), industry-standard HD plastic drums or cans.
It appears that wooden barrels have been steadily replaced for a long time now; the youngest burrels I encountered were only about 50 years old. This is when I made a startling discovery — Goa actually had a fledgling unorganised barrel-coppering industry! Skilled craftsmen of the Chari clan engaged in repairing and constructing barrels. Remarkably, the Goan Chari coopers managed to ingeniously substitute imported and expensive oak for a locally available, flexible and knot-free reddish wood called miri, and adapted the arduous process to craft large barrels. Though barrels are still made all over the world, in Goa the art is on the verge of dying out forever. There is just one traditional Goan cooper left, and the biggest obstacle to the crafts’ survival will be his ability to pass on his skill and experience to someone else. Traditional craftsmen seldom find worthy apprentices. New barrels might soon be available — bought or commissioned, or repurposed from elsewhere — but they will never be the same. However for now, the scarcity of finding and conserving what is left of this culture, is most pressing for the future of cashew feni.
Mr. Sonu Sawant, second generation master distiller of Bicholim-style cashew feni, standing at the entrance of his cashew feni barrel cellar.
Photo credit: Hansel Vaz
Sadly, that dark summer evening, the fire also consumed a proud family legacy. The Haldancars were one of Goa’s rare commercial feni producers who continued to also store their feni in these traditional old burrels. “The pain is too much to bear... Forget the feni, am’cheo burrel’a gelam antam (our barrels are gone now),” mourned Tukaram Haldancar, third generation feni producer. These barrels were commissioned at least 70 years ago by his grandfather, the founder of the family’s feni business. As custodians of his legacy, this loss plucked a deep chord in their hearts, and my heart too. The fire caused the barrels to burst into a fireball explosion, sparing nothing in the room. Everything was charred to a cinder. I entered the warehouse, my shoes crunching as I trampled upon the embers. It was still wet after the firemen. A strong smell of cashew feni hung in the air, and as my eyes wandered the dark room, I saw seven enormous wooden barrels lie motionless and utterly destroyed; every one of them detonated apart. The staves burned through, my heart sank. As far as the effect on the season’s volume of cashew feni is concerned, the losses are insignificant; the industry has more than enough already in storage. But from a perspective of heritage, this loss will amplify ignorance about our little-documented feni industry. That evening, the fire not only robbed the Haldancars, but it took from us a part of our heritage. We cannot afford to lose any more of our feni history, because it is the history of Goa.
Hansel Vaz is geologist by profession and the founder of Cazulo Premium Feni.
Banner image: The Goa Villa
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