Tippling Point I How Batavia arrack, one of the world’s oldest drinks, became a cult spirit

You have heard enough of whisky. You have drunk a lot of brandy. And what more you need to hear about rum, gin, vodka, tequila, and all! But tell me, what about Batavia Arrack? Heard about it? Beaten? Well take it if you can, this Indonesian drink was the granddad of most of the drinks you have ever tasted in your life.

Batavia arrack—this still funky spirit that originated on the island of Java is among the oldest distilled spirits in the world. (The word 'arrack' is probably Arabian which means condensation or distillation and 'Batavia' represents the Indonesian port from where the arrack was shipped to Europe).

When the Dutch trading expedition reached the Indonesian archipelago in the 16th century, they explored placed including Java, an island recently fallen to the Muslim conquest. Arrack, distilled from rice or palm leaves, was one of the most interesting things they found in the land.

The Javans were well-versed in the craft of distilling. Though it was the Arabs who taught the Javan people the art and science of distilling, it was the Chinese sugar growers who gave them the secret recipe of adding rice cakes to coconut sap in the process of distillation to make the drink we see today. That was a huge leap from mere distilling, the Javans learned.

Serependity Drink

So what the Dutch stumbled upon in the island was a queer drink, an aqua vita of rice and coconut palm sap or molasses.

They could find nothing like that on the continent from where they came. It's the rum of Indonesia. Still, it is not rum. Soon production started on a large scale and the Batavian arrack found its way to Europe.

In the 18th century, while the lower classes rotted on gin, the elite was spicing up their punch bowls with a curious concocti0n from the east. The affinity of Batavian arrack with rum was close but the malty finish of the new drink provided by rice took it to a higher level.

But towards the end of the 19th century, the arrack's roughness on the palate along with the large-scale production of rum in the South American colonies sounded the death bell for the drink. Slowly just as the way it came in, the arrack's popularity declined in Europe, finally relegating the Javan drink to the annals of forgotten drinks. As Indonesia grew more and more conservative, with the administration embracing its religion more tightly, the country didn't want to wear this phenomenal drink on their sleeves. With no intensive marketing for the most popular product from their country, the Batavian drink was destined to be forgotten.

They Didn’t Give Up

The arrack's survival into the 21st century has much to do with the Dutch who still believed in its potential. Even while Europe turned away from Batavian Arrack, they never left behind the taste they had acquired for the drink from their former colony.

The invention of Swedish Punch, a Batavia-arrack-based cocktail also contributed to the revival of the spirit from Java. Add to that its resurrection in cocktail counters in the English-speaking world. Buy a bottle, fix one of the headiest and the most mysterious Punch you have ever made in your life. Today the spirit also enjoys a cult following among bartenders all over the world.

Batavian arrack, if it should claim itself as one, should come from the island of Java and is traded today almost only over the Netherlands from where it fans out to different parts of the world.