“Oh no, you won’t find that here. You must travel at least 30 kilometers to find,” said the hotel manager, shaking his head vehemently.
I was in Thamel, Kathmandu’s most touristy neighborhood, and raksi – the home-brewed, distilled, fermented millet drink – was not to be found on any menu, despite the thousands of restaurants lining the crowded sidewalks.
I’d tasted raski the previous week in Gorkha, a historic district in Nepal’s western Himalayas famed as the home of the first king who united country. In a storefront with no name and no tables, I watched the proprietor pour a glass from a 2-liter plastic bottle fetched from under the counter. The former Coca-Cola container now held a clear liquid that, according to a Nepalese doctor, is consumed by residents of the Himalayan region at all times of day, and at every age.
After a four-hour trek into the hills to visit a patient, the doctor and I had stopped to taste the famed raksi, and the traditional snack that goes with it: dried buffalo meat and uncooked, beaten rice.
I braced myself for the burn of bootleg hooch I’ve tasted elsewhere, but the liquid was smooth and light like sake or soju rice wine, only milder. My companion explained that this raksi must have been distilled at least five times – passpane – making it more drinkable, and cheaper. The real deal, I was told, is timpane – that’s raksi distilled three times. That was the strong stuff, the good stuff. It was also stuff much harder to find.
Back in Kathmandu I set off in search of the legendary timpane. At a local restaurant with Nepalese friends, a glass was quickly overruled by my hosts. Not timpane – not the real deal. We settled for tongba – fermented millet in a giant aluminum jug, steeped in boiling water, and consumed through an aluminum straw. Despite its alcoholic content and potency, tongba is referred to as “tea” by people in remote Himalayan villages, and, fittingly, drank in the mornings.
It was my last day before the hotel manager finally showed pity. “Listen, I’ll bring you some from a house I know tomorrow morning, before your flight.”
And so, at 9am with suitcase in one hand and timpane in a small soda bottle in the other, I ceremoniously took a sip. I swirled the mild flavors around my tongue, registering a bit more tang this time, and a hint of sweetness. An amateur consumer of distilled beverages, the best thing I could compare raksi to was a watered-down whiskey.
Satisfying my curiosity for this local tradition was still worth the chase.
