JJCM in KT #16 - The Sweet, Refreshing, Pungent Air Nira.

After stuffing ourselves on Satar, we continued our journey but there seemed a traffic jam ahead. Suddenly, a policeman loomed over the vehicle waving his hand up and down to slow the cars. Working under the blazing hot sun, what a friendly, hard working and honest traffic policeman he must be.

“Care for a drink?”

“Sure. But where are we to find a drink in the middle of the road?”

“Wait and see”.

I don’t like the enigmatic smile on our driver’s lips. He suddenly pulled over by a crude stall with rolls of cloudy and yellow reused bottles on wooden platform that looked more like it was being used for selling fish than drinks. Alarm bells were ringing and we wonder what he was getting us into this time.

After some exchanges of words, the owner went over to a Styrofoam box and pulled out a plastic bottle that was swimming in iced water. He triumphantly brought back the bottle to the car and said – “Air Nira to drive away the heat!” (‘Air’ is water in Malaysia. We did not get that wrong for we pronounced it as ‘ai-year’ not air).

We looked suspiciously at that milky water, cloudy is a better description as the connotation was more accurate. Unscrewed the cap and whiff! Whew! A sweet pungent smell invaded our nose like a rotting fruit. Surely we are not going to drink that. Phua nodded his head encouragingly and poured a gulp down his throat and declared ‘great’ to encourage the rest of us who were pulling our lips down in disgust.

But we only pass this way but once and we cannot be wondering the rest of our life what that awful drink that tasted so sweet to others really tasted like to us. So we tried to prevent our nose from smelling while taking a gulp. The liquid coursed down our throat in a refreshing stream that was invigorating fresh. The taste is pleasantly sweet. In fact, everything is just great except for the smell which spoiled it for us. As this thought went through my mind, I suddenly realized – wasn’t that very much how durian would feel like to Westerners who don’t have the nose for it?

Air Nira is collected from the cut flowers of palm trees. When it is first collected, there is no alcohol content and little odor. But they fermented very fast from the natural yeast in the air. They have to be cooled immediately to slow down the fermentation. It is said either a little lime or a piece of “kulit gelam” (bark of “Cengal” tree) would also slow down fermentation. If left to ferment, within 2 hours it will turn into toddy or palm wine containing up to 4% alcohol and is intoxicating. So while Air Nira is okay for Muslim,Toddy is not so they have to be careful when they are drinking it!

Air Nira can be produced from most trees of the palm family. We assumed the one we were drinking from was from coconut. But you could also buy Air Nira Nipah which is produced from the Nipah palm. It could even be produced from the oil palm though I have not heard of anyone doing that in Malaysia. It is however very common in Africa.

We were wondering if the Air Nira has been kept too long when we saw a car with eyes staring at us from the back of a truck pulling it. It turned out to be a marketing gimmick by Toyota on their new Vios. We heaved a sigh of relief that we would not be pulled over for drunk driving so speeded onward…

To be continued...