Preferring rice in alcohol – the Manipuri way

The Manipuris who used to earlier relish country liquor in the safety of their homes can now be seen binging openly in the mushrooming drinking joints across the state. The traditional Manipuri liquor includes mountain creek water and high-nutrition Manipuri rice. Owing to the high demand, the farmers have resorted to cultivating barley. Regular drinkers, however, can distinguish the flavour and are not too happy about it. In some liquor factories, distinct flavour is added to the local produce to transmogrify it into costly Indian Made Foreign Liquor(IMFL) bottles.