Harald Baldr

The Widow Gongo Brewmaster of Nepal

HIMALAYA, MANASLU: In the villages of the mountains of Nepal, a locally brewed drink called Roxy is incredibly popular. It looks fairly simple to brew as long as you have the proper cauldrons, enough firewood and ground down corn or millet. As a huge fan of this beverage, I've always been curious as to the exact method of its production. As I was preparing to trek the Manaslu circuit earlier this year, I ran into a woman who've been brewing for decades. The method was handed down to her by her father, who in turn learnt it from his father. Village life in the mountains of Nepal is obviously no walk in the park and one of the ways this woman have been able to raise her family despite being a widow, is by brewing and running a bar for local porters and passers by entirely on her own. Fascinated that a foreigner took such a keen interested in how Roxy is made in these remote mountains, she invited me to brew from scratch...