The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India,...

The country liquor, consisting of spirits distilled from the flowers of the mahua tree, is an indispensable adjunct to marriage and other ceremonial feasts among the lower castes of Hindus and the non-Aryan tribes. It is usually drunk before the meal out of brass vessels, cocoanut-shells or leaf-cups, water being afterwards taken with the food itself. If an offender has to give a penalty feast for readmission to caste but the whole burden of the expense is beyond his means, other persons who may have committed minor offences and owe something to the caste on that account are called upon to provide the liquor. Similarly at the funeral feast the heir and chief mourner may provide the food and more distant relatives the liquor. The Gonds never take food while drinking, and as a rule one man does not drink alone. Three or four of them go to the liquor-shop together and each in turn buys a whole bottle of liquor which they share with each other, each bottle being paid for by one of the company and not jointly. And if a friend from another village turns up and is invited to drink he is not allowed to pay anything. In towns there will be in the vicinity of the liquor-shop retailers of little roasted balls of meat on sticks and cakes of gram-flour fried in salt and chillies. These the customers eat, presumably to stimulate their thirst or as a palliative to the effects of the spirit. Illicit distillation is still habitual among the Gonds of Mandla, who have been accustomed to make their own liquor from time immemorial.

In the rains, when travelling is difficult and the excise officers cannot descend on them without notice, they make the liquor in their houses. In the open season they go to the forest and find some spot secluded behind rocks and also near water. When the fermented mahua is ready they put up the distilling vat in the middle of the day so that the smoke may be less perceptible, and one of them will climb a tree and keep watch for the approach of the Excise Sub-Inspector and his myrmidons while the other distils.