Desi Wine

Assam is a mix of many colours and smells. The culture essentially is an eclectic one, with different tribes and communities blending their distinctive specialities together and weaving an ethnic pattern into the persona of the region. From music, heritage, nature and people, the region is blessed with a cornucopia of interesting areas that would even entice the most laidback traveller.

Food is one of the priorities of the Assamese culture. The culinary preferences of the tribes of Assam are quite interesting as they are peculiar. Being an agricultural society primarily, and having non-spicy preferences, the Assamese cuisine sticks to a sedate taste with just herbs and salt. Even for their various festivals which line up the whole year, the palate seems to be content with the plain diet that the people are used to. The only thing that stands out as the mouthpiece of a celebration is the wine. Every festival of these tribes is accompanied by great food and generous doses of liquor. Made in their own specific ways, the local wines measure the the height of festivity in every celebration.

Now that we’re talking about liquor, there is one component that cannot miss our attention. Rice is one of the primary ingredients among the food items of the tribes. From rice cakes to rice beer, the tribes use rice as inevitably the most important and cosmopolitan thing in their kitchens. The wine that is made from rice is called rice beer. From weddings to religious festivals, rice beer is used to cater each and every important ceremony.

Though there seem to be many different tribes in the state and many different names of the native liquor, the ways of making wine are similar. The reason lies in the genealogical fact that most tribes in Assam have the same origin. At some point of time, certain Tibetan tribes came into the Northeast from the southwestern regions and since then started inhabiting the state. Consequently the procedures of preparing wine don’t vary a lot, except a few ingredients. Some use spices or ashes for making their kind of wine and some use a different kind of rice altogether. The Sonowal Kacharis use sticky rice (bora saul) to prepare their wine. But the basic ingredients of the wine essentially include ground rice, herbs and roots. So the colour of the wines turns out to be yellow or brownish.

The Misings call their wine ‘Apong’ while the Rabhas call it ‘saku’. The same wine has ‘horlong’ as its Karbi name. But among them all, Apong is a name most often heard, and a wine most likely to qualify what we call “local wine”. That justifies why I have chosen to give you the recipe of Apong.
Poro Apong and Noging Apong are two major kinds of Apongs, prepared by the Misings which have similarity with other kinds of wines too. The Poro Apong has different varieties. One of them is reddish brown in colour and has an amazing taste. We call it Saai Mod (ash wine), since the ingredients that go into its making basically include ashes of husk and straw.

INGREDIENTS

Rice – around 5 kgs
Husk and straw ash – 1 kg
Apo pop – 100 gm (prepared from the different herbs and roots; available at local tribal markets)
Water
Bamboo strainer or (ta suk) – 1
Banana leaves or torapaat – a few

PROCEDURE

Cook rice in water and leave it to cool. Then add the ash and the apo pop into it and mix well. The apo pop helps in the fermentation of the rice. Put this mixture in an earthen pot, and cover the mouth with straw, so that air doesn’t pass through. This has to be kept for 20-25 days. After that, take a bamboo strainer (ta suk) and put the banana leaves inside it. Now put the fermented rice on top of it and pour water on it, bit by bit. Let the liquid drop into a beaker through the strainer. What you get finally, is Poro Apong. Noging Apong is prepared in the same method but with sticky rice and without the ash.
Every region has its particular local cuisine and its distinguishable specialities. From what has been known about local tribal wines of Assam, they seem to be able to compete with all its other counterparts in the market. You might not find them commercially available too often, but if you do get the chance to visit the Assamese countryside, spare a moment to taste the local wine. Prepared in clean and hygienic atmosphere, it is as promising as any other hard drink that gives you the perfect ethereal kick!

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