nipa (Nypa fruticans) is, along with the coconut and raffia palms, one of the three main species of palm tree from which spirits are commonly distilled. See arrack, coconut; and ogogoro. The nipa palm, which grows in mangrove swamps around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, is short and leafy, with its trunk growing underground and only the large leaves showing. As with coconut palms, the fruit stalks are cut, and the sap, which is about 14–17 percent sucrose, collected and fermented. The resulting palm wine is then distilled, usually in pot stills, although in the Philippines lambanog, as nipa spirit is generally known, is sometimes made in column stills. See lambanog.
In the absence of a detailed history of distilling in Asia, it is difficult to say when nipa spirit was first made. In 1574, the Spanish colonial official Andres de Mirandaola listed it among the spirits characteristic of the Philippines, while in the 1580s, Jan van Linschoten recorded it being distilled in Burma and shipped around the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in large earthenware “Martaban” jars (so called from the Burmese port of that name, now Mottama). In the Philippines, nipa wine was traditionally distilled in wooden Chinese-style caua internal-condensation stills, which may be taken as a clue to the origin of the industry. See still, pot.
Today the largest manufacture and market is in the Philippines, where both unbranded local versions and branded, even slick modern versions are popular. The former are frequently adulterated and are generally avoided by the cautious drinker. The latter range from the artisanal and delicately aromatic to the industrial and bland. That blandness makes the industrial versions good bases for making flavored spirits. These tend to the artificial: “bubble gum” is a popular variety.
Blair, Emma H., and James A. Robertson. The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 3. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1903.
Gibbs, H. D., and W. C. Holmes. “The Alcohol Industry of the Philippine Islands, Part II.” Philippine Journal of Science, February 1912, 19–46.
Van Linschoten, Jan. The Voyage of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies, vol. 1. London: Hakluyt Society, 1885.
By: David Wondrich