The mid-April sunlight that washes over Sangolda, Goa, is golden. At their beautiful Portuguese-style villa, Freedom Tree co-hosted Goya’s first-ever urraca tasting party. The story of urraca is very special to us at Goya, and one we hope to champion in exciting ways through the coming year, alongside India’s other indigenous spirits. Urraca is the first distillate of fermented cashew juice, a light, summery and absolutely delicious beverage with a very short season. Urraca is held up by an artisanal industry and a fascinating culture of its own, unique to the state of Goa.

Over prawn risois, slices of fresh cashew apple, and brined baby mango from Mapusa market, we hosted an intimate gathering of 30 people as Hansel Vaz, feni guru and founder of Cazulo Feni, led us through the tastings. We began with niro, juice of the cashew fruit (funky smelling, but unbelieveably sweet), two kinds of urraca (from north and south goa), and two kinds of feni. Hansel shared anecdotes and discoveries from his years of research on the subject, proving to a captivated audience that fact is always stranger than fiction.

Nachiket Pimprikar documents the process of harvesting cashew and distilling urraca at Hansel’s farm, Fazenda Cazulo. See the photo-essay here.

More on the urraca tasting here.