Why Tap the Toddy?

Let’s start with the most important factor in all this – Sri Lankans love a tipple, and tapping the flowers from coconut palms is the foundation for not one, but two famous Sri Lankan drinks. The first is gleaned directly from the flower sap of either palm tree – Kithul or coconut – and called ‘Toddy’. It ferments naturally over a few days. The second drink comes from mixing the toddy with yeast, which becomes the basis for Arrack: the fiery spirit beloved by Sri Lankan men.

You must try at least one glass on your holiday. An ‘entry level’ Arrack would be as part of an Arrack Mojito – a delicious drink, best made at one of the converted colonial boutique hotels in Sri Lanka. Purists will always drink it ‘on the rocks’, or with a dash of soda or water.

The challenge is that the flowers are often 60-100 m high, so it’s a constant process of going between the different palms to get the right flowers at the right time – hence all the ropes between the palms. To collect the sap, the tappers beat the flower over a few days (which aids the fermentation process), then tie a container (labu Katey) and leave this underneath the flower to collect the sap, often overnight. The process can be repeated twice a day. Once a large amount of sap has been collected it can be drunk directly, or mixed with yeast ready for the distillery.

You’ll find Toddy Tappers scaling the palms trees in a few areas of Sri Lanka, primarily along the west coast. Around Chilaw and Bentota are our recommendations to see the sheer scale of their operation.