Pop go the licensing laws!

India has a complex array of liquor licensing laws. This partly reflects the diverse array of religious and political divisions around the place. So there are some hardline no-drug, no-alcohol philosophies, combined with the rather free-and-easy 'anything goes' attitude that actually makes everything work and everyone get on with each other (sort of).

In the state of Kerala recently, the rules have been changing almost from week to week. There's been a strong appetite among many local legislators for going down the prohibition road. They claim to have a particularly virulent problem with alcoholism, and judging by the scenes I witnessed when I passed by a couple of their licensed bottle shops, there must be something unusual going on. They were horrendous looking black holes, but with massive queues out along the pavement. Rather uninviting!

I'd had an indirect dealing with a Kerala bottle shop a few days earlier in Cochin. We'd arrived at our 4-star hotel after a long and thirsty day of travel. They had a rooftop restaurant and I was rather looking forward to a beer with my meal. No chance. You can't have alcohol with your meal, we were told. I was advised to wait in my room and all would be fixed. A good old standard Indian Kingfisher beer would be fine, I said. They couldn't quite guarantee that. They'd do what they could. Hungry and thirsty, I waited in the room, and after what seemed like an hour the stuff arrived. It was heavily camouflaged in brown paper packaging. It was warm. I was told I'd have to drink it in the room. Worst of all, it was Budweiser! And not the usual bland, sweet, weak, American Budweiser, but a special 8% proof one! Unheard of, and of course barely drinkable. It seemed the hotel had no liquor license, the chap had had to run to one of those dingy neighbourhood bottle shops, and the choice had been very limited!



In the beach resorts of Kovalam and Varkala, we found it all worked a bit better. It was quite clear that none of the restaurants or hotels had licences. They got around this by serving their beer in opaque pitchers, and encouraging you to keep the bottle on the floor, out of sight.



And the description of the beverage on the bill, in case of any audit by the licensing authorities? It was always either 'pop' or 'pop juice'!