I used to travel to India a lot and would have this when staying with friends in Hyderabad, flies and all. My friend would send one of his servants out in the morning to buy it for us. The way he explained it - someone would climb the palm tree in the evening, make cuts in a place where the liquid would leak out and pool, then there would be fermentation overnight (bacterial, not yeast), and then they collect it on the morning.
It reminded me of a drink here in Switzerland made during grape harvest and also bacterial fermentation. Also sour cider in the babe region but that’s much more sophisticated.
This palm juice alcohol is very primitive and probably something monkeys drank.
What is it about bats that makes them vectors for so many maladies? EDITED to remove spurious ref to rodents
neaden 5 hours ago [-]
A big thing is that Bats have a really weird metabolism, during their day it can dip down to 50 Fahrenheit and then go up to 104 F at night when they are active. This can mean they end up carrying a lot of diseases but not dying/showing symptoms of them. They also have very strong DNA repair compared to other mammals. Then in addition many bats are very social and sleep in big groups, which means the disease can spread throughout the bat population.
Edit: Finally and relevantly they can come in close contact with people by coming into our homes, or people going into theirs. This can let the disease cross over.
thaumasiotes 3 hours ago [-]
> Bats have a really weird metabolism, during their day it can dip down to 50 Fahrenheit and then go up to 104 F at night when they are active. This can mean they end up carrying a lot of diseases but not dying/showing symptoms of them.
What is the connection between these two ideas?
neaden 27 minutes ago [-]
Most organisms, including pathogens, have a relatively narrow temperature range they operate in. Hence why we get fevers in order to fight them off. Bats spend most of the time too cold, then get up to the equivalent of a high grade fever for an extended time. Here's a paper on the subject https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4012789/
xnx 5 hours ago [-]
> 50% to 75% of those infected die
Whoa
decimalenough 5 hours ago [-]
Not mentioned is one more part of the battle: toddy is considered a low-class drink for rowdy workers, and tightly regulated accordingly. This guy has been battling Singaporean bureaucracy for six years now just to be allowed to import it from neighboring Malaysia:
This story is from 2021 so I wonder how those startups are faring now. For a while molecular alcohol was the hot thing, with startups like Endless West raising a lot of VC to try and shortcut aging.
system7rocks 5 hours ago [-]
I am very intrigued as local, culturally specific wines/beers/fermentation speak so much to our creativity and community as human beings.
But thanks for the heads up about Nipah Virus! Wow!
It reminded me of a drink here in Switzerland made during grape harvest and also bacterial fermentation. Also sour cider in the babe region but that’s much more sophisticated.
This palm juice alcohol is very primitive and probably something monkeys drank.
Edit: Finally and relevantly they can come in close contact with people by coming into our homes, or people going into theirs. This can let the disease cross over.
What is the connection between these two ideas?
Whoa
https://www.ricemedia.co/one-mans-quest-to-revive-toddy-the-...
But thanks for the heads up about Nipah Virus! Wow!