Fresh Fermented Palm Wine Is a Vital Part of Kerala’s Culture

Fresh toddy, or palm wine — at least as it’s drunk in its home in the Indian state of Kerala — doesn’t travel well. The liquid begins fermenting the moment it leaves the palm, which is why for centuries it has remained a fiercely local drink, consumed within hours, sometimes minutes, of being tapped. That volatility is part of its magic, but it’s also the reason most Americans know palm wine only as a curiosity. 

In African and Caribbean grocery stores across the U.S., you can occasionally find bottled or locally imported palm wine, sometimes labeled simply as “palm wine” or “kallu.” But to understand what toddy is, and why it has resisted globalization for so long, you have to meet it at the source.

Toddy tapping in Kerala

At 6 a.m., on a quiet morning in October, Kerala’s backwaters bring life and movement to everyday village life. Palms sway, birds wake up, and amidst the soft chatters of mynas and white-cheeked barbets, there is a peculiar sound of clay knocking against bark. Anil Kumar Manjra, a robust man in his 50s, secures a kudukka, a small, cylindrical clay vessel, at his waist with a coir (coconut-fiber) rope. He makes his ascent, steady and sure, toward the palm’s crown, where a kudam, a type of clay pot, holds the toddy gathered drop by drop overnight.

“I’ve been doing this morning and evening for the past 33 years,” he says in Malayalam. “See,” he points to a cluster high above us, “that’s the coconut flower. Once it blooms, you get the inflorescence. It later turns into a coconut after the bees pollinate it.” But before it opens, it’s wrapped in a green spathe. “For us toddy tappers, it must not open,” he says. “So we climb and tie it up with strips of coconut leaf. Then we beat it, from bottom upward.” 

With his hands, he demonstrates a gentle drumming motion with a pothu, a buffalo bone that he purchased from a friend in the nearby Palakkad district. “Each day, I beat, coax,” says Manjra. “Then with a special knife, I slice at the top, and that’s when the toddy starts coming, drop by drop.” 

To channel the sap, he smears clay around the cut. The clay helps in two ways: it encourages the flow and prevents the sap from spilling everywhere. Then the clay kudam is secured beneath. Through the night, the flower drips into it. By morning, when Manjra climbs up again, there is fresh toddy waiting to be collected.

“The morning toddy is the sweetest,” he says. “By evening, it ferments, and the sugar turns into alcohol.” 

A single coconut flower produces up to two liters of toddy each day, enough for three to six months. “But I must choose strong, healthy trees; otherwise, the yield is not good,” he says, adding that out of his seven coconut trees, the yield is around thirty liters a day. 

Each morning and each evening, Manjra carries the fresh toddy to the local toddy shack in Kumarakom, which buys it from him. By law, only licensed sellers are allowed to retail toddy since it’s an alcoholic drink. They store it at the shop and sometimes leave it to continue fermenting, increasing its alcoholic content. 

A tree continues to produce toddy “seventy, eighty years,” says Manjra. “They keep flowering, one after another. Only after five years do the flowers begin to bloom, and that’s when we start tapping.” The price he gets is “200 rupees (about $2.24) a liter. Just enough to make a living.”

Next door, Amma, in her 80s, weaves coconut fronds into a thatch that will shield her hut from sun and rain. A little ways off, Usha P.T. and her husband Sandosh M.P. demonstrate how coir rope is still made the old way, without machinery. “Every part of the tree is used,” says Pratheesh Yamey, senior naturalist at the Coconut Lagoon Resort. “Timber for furniture, leaves for thatching or temple decoration, husks spun into coir, the shells carved into handicrafts or used as fuel in old charcoal irons. [The flower] is auspicious; it’s kept in vessels of rice during festivals like Onam and Vishu for prosperity.”

Kerala toddy-inspired dishes

The toddy has seeded dishes across Kerala’s food culture. In small toddy shops tucked away in villages and along highways, the drink is rarely consumed alone. It is always paired with dishes that can match its character. 

Locals love kappa vevichathu, a dish with coconut and turmeric mashed tapioca and spicy fish curry. Other favorites include meen peera, a small fish that’s cooked with curry leaves, grated coconut, and green chilies, and kariveppila koonthal, a traditional squid dish with curry leaves.

“Toddy shops popularized squid fried with masala, because it’s quick to cook and pairs well with strong drinks,” says Jerry Matthews, executive chef of Coconut Lagoon. While cooking tharavu (duck) mappas, another toddy-inspired dish that found its way into home kitchens, he explains the dish’s origins and how he connects it to toddy. “The name ‘mappas’ is derived from the Portuguese word for potatoes (pappas), and is a nod to the early practice of adding potatoes to the duck curry. It’s a traditional duck curry that we slow-cook in coconut milk with pepper and cloves, and sometimes tempered with slightly fermented toddy.”

Bringing toddy to the modern age

Far from Kerala, a new generation of producers is trying to translate palm wine for modern shelves, while maintaining its origins. 

Cocokallu, founded in New York City by South Asian entrepreneurs, has been producing and distributing palm wine from fermented coconut sap since October 2024, and is the closest approximation to fresh toddy you are likely to taste in the U.S. Poyo Palm Wine, which is bottled in Ohio and styled on West African palm wine traditions, is another example of how this traditional drink is finding new expressions. 

The heart of toddy, however, is in its local, traditional expression, where toddy tappers like Manjra rise every morning at dawn to climb a coconut palm and gather toddy, drop by drop.