Arrack is a distilled alcoholic drink typically produced in India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, made from the fermented sap of coconut flowers or sugarcane, and also with grain (e.g. red rice) or fruit depending upon the country of origin. It is sometimes spelled arak, or simply referred to as 'rack or 'rak. It is not to be confused with the anise-flavored distilled spirit called arak or araq. There are two primary styles of Arrack that are very different from one another: Batavia Arrack is often clear in color but has a flavor profile more similar to dark rum, with a distinctive "funk" or "hogo" imparted to it from fermented red rice. Ceylon Arrack, by contrast, is a more refined and subtle spirit. It has hints of Cognac and rum character and a wealth of delicate floral notes. Both styles are also made "in house" by local citizenry and can be more akin to moonshine in their presentation. History Strabo reports Indians made a beverage from rice which is known as Arak. Arrack predates all "New World" spirits, as it is a parent to aguardiente (which was, in turn, the parent of rum, rhum agricole, and ron). Genoese merchants made the spirit as a byproduct of their sugar cane production in the Canary Islands. Besides making sugar, they produced arrack instead of importing it for their growing list of customers. Other early arrack was distilled from molasses and water, using dried cakes of red rice and botanicals that contain yeast and other fungi to trigger the fermentation process (this technique can be traced back thousands of years to China and even predates the birth of distillation). It is also claimed to have been distilled in India in 800 BC, but while palm wine and fermented sugar-cane drinks were being made around this time period not all believe that formal distillation was taking place. Outside Asia, the spirit was a common ingredient in the proliferation of Indian alcoholic punch, and was particularly popular in Holland and Sweden. It was the first distilled spirit consumed in the continental US, in the colonies of New Sweden and New Netherland, but is now mostly confused with the more common and similar spelled anise-flavored spirit arak. Regardless of the exact origin, arrack has come to symbolize a multitude of largely unrelated, distilled alcohols produced throughout Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. This is largely due to