toddy

Once in Kerala, the film whizzes through a checklist of things a layperson might associate with the tourist-favourite state - its famous backwaters, the ubiquitous coconut trees, toddy, elephants, and Onam, its most popular festival.

Women throughout India have long called for liquor bans to reign in their drunken husbands, who squandered all their earnings drinking the toddy bar dry before stumbling home and assaulting them.

Sit back, nurse a comforting hot toddy, and allow this gem of a novel to slowly envelop you like a hug you’ll be sorry to break up.

The viewer stops at a village where they are boiling the sap of date palms to make toddy, a local brew.

If we got bad sore throats, flu, croup or cough, he would make us “hot toddies.”