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Alcoholic drinks from Visayas and Mindanao, Philippines

Intus (Visayan/Mindanao sugarcane wine)intus (Manobo)

Intus is a sugarcane wine of eastern Mindanao. Crushed cane juice is boiled down in a pot with pounded langkawas or pal-la roots piled around a slatted bamboo cylinder, then left to ferment in jars or pots. It is drinkable after five days but is usually kept longer; a few months turns it amber and rum-scented. The account comes from Garvan's fieldwork of 1907–1910 and his 1931 memoir.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks5 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedAs much juice as the pot holds; no amounts were recorded.
Sugarcane, peeled and cut into pieces about 30 cm long, crushed for juice[garvan1912]
Langkawas (Manobo) or pal-la (Mandaya and Mangguangan) roots, sliced thin and poundedGarvan calls the pounded root the ferment. His 1931 memoir calls the plant a gingerlike one and names Cordyline terminalis; Wikipedia gives langkawas as Alpinia galanga and pal-la as Cordyline fruticosa[garvan1912][garvan1931][WP:Philippine wine]
Starterplant roots (langkawas or pal-la), pounded and boiled with the juice; Garvan calls them the ferment

Total time across the recorded steps: 5 days

Start
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What changes: A rolling palm log crushes cane pieces and the juice runs out

Step 1 of 4
Crush the sugarcane
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: sugarcane juice.

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

At a glance

Intus is a sugarcane wine of eastern Mindanao. Crushed cane juice is boiled down in a pot with pounded langkawas or pal-la roots piled around a slatted bamboo cylinder, then left to ferment in jars or pots. It is drinkable after five days but is usually kept longer; a few months turns it amber and rum-scented. The account comes from Garvan's fieldwork of 1907–1910 and his 1931 memoir. Made in 4 steps over 5 days. The longest step, ferment in jars or bamboo joints, takes at least 5 days (Garvan J.M. 1912).

Key numbers
Main stepat least 5 daysReported[garvan1912][garvan1931]Ferment in jars or bamboo joints

What makes this one different

Intus is cane juice boiled down with pounded langkawas or pal-la roots before it ferments, so it is cooked and spiced, unlike fresh palm-sap tuba. Garvan found it much stronger than coconut tuba.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Mountain Mandaya intusOnly a quarter of the juice is boiled off; milky, sweetish and hard on those not used to it.
  • Pantukan intus (Davao del Norte)A modern account describes an intus made mainly from taro, boiled, moved to a jar and infused with langkawas and sugar; it is said to taste best after two to three years, with the jar buried underground (GRID Magazine).
  • Chestnut intusBoiled down fast on a big fire to a chestnut colour; Garvan found it palatable, wholesome and exhilarating after a fair amount of fermentation.

Safety

Garvan reports that the milky intus of the mountain Mandaya, with only a quarter of the juice boiled off, has a harmful effect on people not used to it. He says the drink of the Manobos of the Upper Agusan, boiled down by half, does not produce such unpleasant results.

History and sources

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

Garvan recorded intus on trading trips to the Upper Agusan in 1907–1908 and a 1909–1910 survey for the Bureau of Science. It was drunk at religious and social feasts, for visitors, to seal bargains and when meat or fish was plentiful. In his 1931 memoir he calls it the most common and popular Manobo drink, offered to the spirits at sacrifices. Wikipedia says it is now largely gone, surviving among some Lumad peoples.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [garvan1912] Garvan J.M. 1912, Report on the drinks and drinking among the Mandaya, Manobo and Mangguangan tribes, in Gibbs H.D., Agcaoili F., The alcohol industry of the Philippine Islands, part III, Philippine Journal of Science, Section A, 7:106–114 (archive.org scan, catalogued as vol. VIII, 1912)archive
  2. [garvan1931] Garvan J.M. 1931, The Manóbos of Mindanáo, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences vol. 23, Washington, Government Printing Office (Project Gutenberg eBook 18607), chapter IX, sugarcane brewbook
  3. [grid-drink] De Castro C., We are what we drink, GRID Magazine (Off the Grid Publishing), Intus, Davao del Norteweb
  4. [WP:Philippine wine] Wikipedia, Philippine wine (outline only)wiki