Arrack is a distilled alcoholic drink typically produced in 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.

Regardless of the exact origin, arrack has come to symbolize a multitude of largely unrelated, distilled alcohols produced throughout Asia and the eastern Mediterranean.

Each country named its own alcohol by using various Latin alphabet forms of the same word which was synonymous with distillation at the time (arak, araka, araki, ariki, arrack, arack, raki, raque, racque, rac, rak).

Its use in punch was noted by early American bartender Jerry Thomas: "Most of the arrack imported into this country is distilled from rice, and comes from Batavia.

[17][18][19][20] Arak plays a socially and culturally important role in Balinese society, where it is often diluted with water, shared with friends, or drunk in small quantities during religious ceremonies.

[21] A Filipino term for distilled and undistilled alcoholic drinks in general is alak, derived from the Arabic word ʿaraq.

The sap is harvested into bamboo receptacles similar to rubber tapping, then cooked or fermented to produce a mildly-alcoholic coconut toddy called tubâ.

[22][23][24] The Italian explorer Antonio Pigafetta stated that the arrack that he drank in Palawan and nearby islands in 1521 was made from distilled rice wine.

[24] Sri Lanka is the largest producer of coconut arrack and up until 1992 the government played a significant role in its production.

[26][27] Other than water, the entire manufacturing process revolves around the fermentation and distillation of a single ingredient, the sap of unopened flowers from a coconut palm (Cocos nucifera).

[28] Each morning at dawn, men known as toddy tappers move among the tops of coconut trees using connecting ropes not unlike tightropes.

Due to its concentrated sugar and yeast content, the captured liquid naturally and immediately ferments into a mildly alcoholic drink called "toddy", tuak, or occasionally "palm wine".

Within a few hours after collection, the toddy is poured into large wooden vats, called "wash backs", made from the wood of teak or Berrya cordifolia.

The natural fermentation process is allowed to continue in the washbacks until the alcohol content reaches 5-7% and deemed ready for distillation.

Various blends of coconut arrack diverge in processing, yet the extracted spirit may also be sold raw, repeatedly distilled or filtered, or transferred back into halmilla vats for maturing up to fifteen years, depending on flavour, colour and fragrance requirements.

[34] In Sweden and Finland, Batavia-arrack has historically been mixed with other ingredients in order to make Swedish punsch (now available in prepackaged bottles).

[3] Today punsch is drunk warm (in Sweden) or cold (in Finland) as an accompaniment to yellow split pea soup (in Sweden) or green split pea soup (in Finland), or chilled as an after dinner drink accompanied with coffee (especially during dinner parties at student nations).

The great source of all Indian literature, and the parent of almost every oriental dialect, is the Sanskrit, a language of the most venerable and unfathomable antiquity, though now confined to the libraries of the Brahmins, and solely appropriated to religious laws and records.

Klaproth says that the Ossetians, (anciently Alans,) a Caucasian people, applied the word " Arak" to denote all distilled liquors, a decided confirmation of the foregoing observations and opinions.