Arrack,

Arrack, or RACK, is an East Indian name (derived from the Arabic) for all sorts of distilled spirituous liquors, but chiefly to that procured from toddy or the fermented juice of the cocoa and other palms, as well as from rice and the kind of brown sugar called jaggery. The palms in other tropical countries furnish a fermented beverage similar to the toddy of India, and in a few instances also it is distilled, but arrack essentially belongs to India and the adjacent countries. The cocoa-nut palm (Cocos nucifera) is a chief source of toddy or palm-wine, which is obtained from trees ranging from twelve to sixteen years old, or in fact at the period when they begin to show the first indication of flowering. After the flowering shoot or spadix enveloped in its spathe is pretty well advanced, and the latter is about to open, the toddy-man climbs the tree and cuts off the tip of the flower-shoot; he next ties a ligature round the stalk at the base of the spadix, and with a small cudgel he beats the flower-shoot and bruises it. This he does daily for a fortnight, and if the tree is in good condition, a considerable quantity of a saccharine juice flows from the cut apex of the flower-shoot, and is caught in a pot fixed conveniently for the purpose, and emptied every day. It flows freely for fifteen or sixteen days, and less freely day by day for another month or more; a slice has to be removed from the top of the shoot very frequently. The juice rapidly ferments, and in four days is usually sour: previous to that it is a favourite drink known in some parts of India as callu, and to the Europeans as toddy. When turning sour, it is distilled and converted into arrack. It is largely manufactured in Goa, Batavia, Ceylon, and Siam. A similar spirit is made pretty largely from the magnificent fan-leaved palm, Borassus flabelliformis, and also from the so-called date-sugar palm, Arenga saccharifera. The name is also given to a spirit obtained from rice and sugar fermented with cocoa-nut sap. An imitation arrack may be prepared by dissolving benzoic acid in rum.