Made from Millet

Millet is a small-seeded grain widely cultivated in India, China and several African countries for food and animal feed. While millet is used to make porridge in Russia, Germany and China and is an important ingredient in foods made in India, it is only rarely used to make Alcohol beverages.

In far eastern Nepal, the Limbu people make a millet-based Alcohol beverage called Tongba. Tongba is made by pouring hot water over fermented millet, and is of great cultural importance to the Limbu people and is traditionally drunk at weddings and other ceremonies.

Rakshi is an Alcohol beverage also made in Nepal, which is usually brewed at home or in rustic distilleries found in the countryside. Rakshi is stronger than Tongba, having about the same alcohol content as vodka, and has been compared in taste to sake, the Japanese rice wine. The places where rakshi is sold are traditionally called bhattis, and are found in almost all Nepalese settlements.

Millet beer is made in parts of Africa (Niger and Nigeria are two of the top producers of millet in the world) and is also known as kaffir beer, Bantu beer, or opaque beer. Millet beer is made by encouraging the germination of millet by soaking it, then sun-drying it to halt the germination. A mash is made and then fermented, and finally strained. In countries such as Mali, the beer is traditionally made by women and consumed by the men.

Millet is used in Central Asia and the Balkans to make a fermented beverage called boza. Boza is commonly made and consumed in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Albania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, the Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Boza was originally made by Turks in the 10^th century and commonly traded during the time of the Ottoman Empire. In fact, boza was commonly fed to the Ottoman Empire's army because of its nutritional value.