This month’s Newsletter includes the dates for the incoming IPS Biennial next year, a note about alcoholic beverages from palm, the call for proposals for the 2018 IPS Endowment Fund Grants and a message about the IPS’ new #99Palms campaign on social media. Our coeditor Kevin Hrycay will be away for a while. Scott Zona will be continuing helping us with the newsletter, and as usual, help from other palm fellows is welcome.
Tuba: This is a beverage from Cocos nucifera
Palms and Alcohol
Palms don’t give us just beautiful ornamental plants, delicious fruits to eat such as coconuts, dates, or those from Bactris gasipaes, Mauritia flexuosa, etc., or posts for building columns, leaves for roofs and rattan for furniture. They also offer a product highly valued by many humans: alcohol! Palm “wines” can be obtained from different palm species and from different parts of the palm. Alcohol production from some palms is poorly studied, others are made artisanally for local use and still others are very well documented. Names and methods of preparation change across countries. Thus, this is a rough overview about a facet of the palm family that many of us do not know well. This is not an extensive list!
Tuba: This is a beverage from Cocos nucifera. The process consists in cutting the flower stalks before they open, and collecting the sap. This sap can be fermented or not. It is typically produced in Colima, Mexico and the Philippines.