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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from West Bengal, India

Cholai (Bengal country rice spirit)চোলাই

Cholai is the rough country spirit of rural Bengal, distilled from a fermented mash of rice (and in some accounts jaggery). A Bengali encyclopedia describes a still of two joined earthen pots, with the vapour cooling in the empty upper pot and running out through a tube. A 1906 study of the same kind of rice spirit in Odisha records each stage (mould-grown rice cakes, a week or more in earthen vats, distillation in joined earthen jars), about three weeks in all. Made in 5 steps over 16 days – 20 days. The longest step, ferment the cakes with water and fresh rice in earthen vats, takes 8–10 days (Ray J.C. 1906). A Mucor species (probably Mucor racemosus), grown on the rice cakes from the bakhar and Bacteria, always found with the Mucor in bakhar, cakes and wort do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step8–10 daysReported[ray1906]Ferment the cakes with water and fresh rice in earthen vats
Temperature29 °C → 34 °CMeasured[ray1906]Mix with bakhar and keep in a basket
DocumentedAlcoholic drinks16 days – 20 daysMore alcoholic drinksMore from India

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceProportions from Ray's 1906 account of the Cuttack Central Distillery, a licensed country distillery in Odisha; no batch for Bengali cholai itself is published.
About 1 part per 100 parts of dry riceBakhar starter, powdered · A black, mouldy mix of powdered rice and the barks and roots of various plants, sold as walnut-sized balls[ray1906]
Half for cakes, half added freshHusked, sun-dried rice, steamed[ray1906]
Water[ray1906]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter: bakhar (a mould starter of rice, bark and roots)

Total time across the recorded steps: 16 days – 20 days

Start
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What changes: Washed rice is steamed soft over boiling water

Step 1 of 5
Steam the rice
Time
30 min
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Mucor threads
Moulds
Mucor turns
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Cholai is distilled, unlike the rice beers such as handia drunk across the same region. Its starter, bakhar, is grown into thick mould cakes before the mash ferments, and in 1906 no yeast was added at any stage.

Related ferments

Variants

  • PachwaiThe undistilled liquid that runs from rice fermented with bakhar in a closed vessel; a weak country beer.
  • Cuttack rice spirit (Odisha, 1906)Made at a licensed central distillery, with copper stills replacing earthen ones by then.

Safety

No safety limits specific to cholai were found. In 1906 some bakhar for undistilled rice beer held narcotic plants such as datura and nux vomica; none were found in the distilled spirit.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Ray's 1906 paper in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal called this the spirit consumed by the poor and traced the bakhar starter to kinva, named by Manu. Cholai is described in the Bengali encyclopedia Bharater Adibasi.

  1. [ray1906] Ray J.C. 1906, On the Hindu method of manufacturing spirit from rice and its scientific explanation, Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (new series) 2(4):129–142archive
  2. [WP:Cholai] Wikipedia, Cholai, citing Bharater Adibasi (outline only)wiki
  3. [WP:Rice wine] Wikipedia, Rice wine, table (outline only)wiki