Friday, November 12, 2010

coconut wine

Recently we had the opportunity to watch
the harvesting of coconut wine,
the freshly tapped sap from a coconut palm.


It was amazing to watch the barefoot tapper
lithely climb to the very top of the tall, notched trunk
armed with a knife and empty bamboo containers.


There he gathered the sap that had collected from the cut flower of the palm tree,
and fastened a new container to the flower stump to collect more.

The white liquid tends to be very sweet
and non-alcoholic before it is fermented.


Palm wine is often distilled to create a stronger drink,
called lambanog. It's pretty potent,
with a typical alcohol content of 80 to 90 proof after a single distillation,
and as high as 166 proof after the second distillation.

I think we'll stick with the coconut milk
(it's getting more tasty upon better acquaintance...)

2 comments:

Judy said...

That sure doesn't look like any coconut I've ever seen at Safeway! The photo of Michael looks like a travel brochure--the epitome of a tropical paradise vacation! Aaahhhhh!

us5 said...

these fresh green coconuts house the coconut seed that you see at Safeway!