India is not a place for great boozing. Historically, Hinduism doesn’t have as strong a connection to the good stuff as Judaism, Christianity, or even Sufi Islam (open Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubbaiyat of Omar Khayyam, close your eyes, and point to a random quatrain and it’ll more than likely have to do with wine.) When the least fun man in the world ended up becoming the nation’s semi-naked hero during the struggle for independence, Gandhi’s puritan values were cherished by people who would probably have thought better of their stances were it not for the fact that the British had just left and they were all massacring each other left and right (or East and West, as the case may be.) Gandhi even went so far as to encourage some anti-alcohol language to be inserted into the constitution. But in spite of this, and in spite of the attempt to ban alcohol for a few years in the 70’s and in spite of several states being “dry,” Indians still drink. Just not that well.

The average consumption across the vast country is about two litres per person according to this article in Express India. However, the article goes into plenty of detail regarding the general distribution of consumption by state and points to some rather interesting differences in alcohol consumption across gender lines. What the fact that Assamese women drink like Punjabi men means is beyond my limited understanding of the situation. In any case, people in India are drinking. People of every class, which is not insignificant in a place which still speaks of castes, and both men and women, despite the best efforts of Hindu fundamentalist thugs like the Sri Ram Sena in Mangalore (trying to outdo or at least catch up to their more successful co-fanatics the Shiv Sena in Maharastra,) who earlier this year attacked women for drinking in bars with men as a prelude to their wildly unsuccessful campaign against the lewdness of Valentine’s day. Gandhi’s ashes must be spinning in the Ganges or something to that effect.

But booze still flows, and although liquor stores are poorly stocked and no particularly cheap, things are looking on the up for libation liberalism: even in Muslim-majority Kashmir, liquor stores have slowly been opening despite threats from the more orthodox religious elements in the area. For many years, India kept a tight lid on its’ booze barrels and restricted importation as part of Nehru’s socialist interpretation of Gandhi’s Swadeshi. In other words: you could only buy Indian-made liquor. This meant some pretty poor-quality stuff coming from a country who’d had thousands of red-faced white men importing all of their slosh from back home and had never put much thought to national brews. This also meant arms full of precious duty-free Black Label whenever one would go to visit family. Now, after the increased opening of India’s market and the deregulation which continues apace under PM Manmohan Singh’s economic plan, I was able to order a Hoegaarden beer at a fancy restaurant in Bombay. Granted, the waiter did insist on showing me the bottle as though I’d just ordered a pre-war Burgundy, and then proceeded to shove what seemed like an entire orange in the glass, but I was impressed that they had any beer apart from the charmingly oversized Kingfisher, which, if not the King of Beers, could perhaps at least be called the Bud of India.

So what of the gin-blossomed ghosts of the Empire, passed out on a verandah with smashed malaria-fighting G&T’s spilled around them? Well, they seem to have taken their dipsomaniacal secrets to their oak-barrel vaulted catacombs. Apart from the annoying English habit of measuring each pour of liquor to the exact milliliter and stingily not leaving anything to chance (to the point of rather boorishly listing the portions on the actual menu,) the Indian concept of the cocktail is little more than a poor attempt to make beverages as sweet and easy to drink as possible for slim local girls who gleefully order a round of “shooters,” and mock their teetotaler friends for ordering “mocktails.” Which is particularly odd: it seems like the Indian bar/loung/club/drinking scene is less about the pleasure of drinking, or even the fleeting pleasure of getting drunk and making mistakes, than it is about playing dress up as a movie character at a bar with an allotted 30ml (I mean, really, come on,) of vodka in a giant tumbler filled with every fruit juice known to Vishnu. I’ve always said you can judge a society by the ease with which one can purchase tonic water (something I’m convinced is good for nothing but cocktails,) and so far I’ve only seen a bottle in one shop here and it didn’t look much bigger than 30ml itself.

But there is hope, and that lies, as one would naturally expect, with the traditional and indigenous method of getting sozzled that has served Indians since the Mauryan empire. There is Tharra, a type of sugarcane moonshine that can blind you and sometimes ends up killing people through copper formaldehyde poisoning from the vats it’s distilled in. Toddy, a homebrew made from the sap of a coconut palm flower (how romantically Oriental, no?) is considerably less toxic. And of course, there is Bhang: the fermented hash liquor which probably tastes like eating a Sikh’s beard after he worked the glass-blowing booth at Burning Man. Bhang may or may not be legal in some places. It’s a bit unclear as to what the exact rules are and to what extent they are enforced, but the premise is that Bhang may be needed in religious rituals, and we all know how sacred (or just plain dangerous interfering with,) religion is to the Indian government. I sometimes wonder if I could marry an underage homosexual monkey in Uttar Pradesh as long as I said it was part of my religion.

Anyway, as I was saying: Tonic Water. Can’t really find it. Hadn’t forseen this eventuality. Had bought a liter at duty free to tide me over for the trip (or at least the first week of it.) But everybody knows that drinking straight gin is almost as unpleasant as drinking un-ginned tonic. So I snooped around my pantry and figured something out. Here’s my recipe:

1/3 Gin

1/3 Litchi Juice

1/3 Limca

Limca is an Indian soft drink which tastes like Jesus decided to make Sprite at home. You should be able to find it in Indian groceries if you ask around – but be careful – just because someone has a red dot on their head doesn’t mean they’re Indian. They may be being targeted by a sniper. Also, don’t make the mistake of putting ice in the drink, not only can one never be sure if the ice in India is made from safe, non-dysentery-causing filtered water, but one can be sure it’s not an authentic Indian anything unless it’s served at room temperature by a way-too-fussy waiter who insists on showing you his medical records before he serves you (well, it’s not quite that bad.) Since the drink is made of Gin and Litchi, I’m going to call it The Glitch. Enjoy.