All images by Xue Qi Ow Yeong for RICE Media unless stated otherwise.
“They queue up several times at the shops, buy as much as they can, and sell again at twice the price to drinkers that arrive late.”
The quote above is an excerpt from a 1956 Straits Times report on gangsters gaming the system at local shops selling toddy—an alcoholic beverage made from fermented palm nectar. It proves two things: (1) Scalpers have always been ruining shit for everyone else, and (2) toddy was once highly in demand here.
First introduced to Singapore by the British in the 1800s, toddy was known as the poor man’s booze. Toddy originated from South India, but quickly grew popular among labourers of all races because it was the cheapest alcohol one could procure—even cheaper than beer.
Consumption was relegated to toddy shops run by the government; taking your toddy home with you was an offence. This may have been for ease of regulation. Or maybe it was a way of discouraging non-labourers from picking up the habit.
Either way, toddy shops didn’t just provide the working man with booze. These were also spots where these men would relax and socialise after a long day of labour.
The beverage was popular until November 7th, 1979, when the last government-operated toddy shops in Singapore closed—a move bemoaned by the nation’s low-wage workers. Some Port of Singapore Authority workers even banded together to write an impassioned open letter which read: “Drinking beer on our wages is unthinkable. We ask that the toddy shop be reopened for the benefit of the lower income group.”
Alas, toddy shops remained shuttered. Four decades on, most Singaporeans have forgotten that toddy—the very drink that fuelled pioneering labourers who built this country—ever existed.
Among those who do remember, there’s still some stigma from its checkered past with crime and coolies. Sharaveen Prasath, the founder of local toddy brand Highdrate SG, is well aware of its history.
Since 2019, the 32-year-old entrepreneur has been laying the groundwork for toddy’s revival here. Sharaveen believes he’s actually the first to attempt to import toddy into Singapore since 1979. But reviving a drink long buried in history means fighting stubborn stereotypes and misinformation.
Can education and rebranding earn toddy a place in Singapore’s drinking culture? Or has the nation outgrown its taste for a labourer’s toast?
Toddy: The Coolie’s Drink of Choice
I meet Sharaveen at Highdrate’s office in an Ubi industrial building. It’s a humble space, about the size of a living room. A scent of woody incense fills the air. Industrial fridges packed to the brim with milky white toddy take up the bulk of the room.
These bottles, he says, will go out to retailers like shops, minimarts, restaurants, bars, and cafes.
They originate from a farm in Malacca, Malaysia, where toddy tappers still climb coconut palm trees daily to harvest palm nectar from the inflorescence—the flower bud. All you need is a knife to lop off the tip of the bud and an earthen jar to collect the liquid that oozes out.
This first batch of nectar that dribbles out is nira, or neera. This is a non-alcoholic, vitamin-rich drink that even kids can have, Sharaveen explains. Throughout the day, as the nectar is exposed to the air, fermentation naturally occurs, and you get toddy—still nutritious but mildly alcoholic.
With about 2.2 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), you’re not likely to get wasted off toddy. But some people get “a little sleepy” after drinking it, he says.
The first order of business is, of course, to have a taste. The fermentation makes the drink slightly fizzy, Sharaveen tells me as he deftly uncaps a bottle and divvies it up into two paper cups. The carbonation tickles my nose as I go in for a sip.
Sharaveen watches intently, seemingly expecting a negative reaction—he remarks later that many find toddy an “acquired taste” due to the tang of fermentation.
The drink does have a strong sour smell. But it’s subtly sweet, and kind of tastes like a coconut kombucha. It goes down easy. Almost too easy. I can see how a round of drinks at the toddy shop became a daily routine for coolies back then.
“Singapore once had its own toddy industry,” Sharaveen tells me. “We made it ourselves.”
That was before coconut plantations gave way to buildings and housing. In 1979, when the last toddy taps ran dry, some 2,500 coconut trees still stood across Yio Chu Kang, Nee Soon, and Tampines. Back then, local toddy tappers were a fixture—until they, too, faded into history.
Contrary to popular belief, the toddy trade in Singapore didn’t cease because of a ban. It was because of worker disputes.
There was one official toddy contractor then: G Sathasivam, also known as the Toddy King of Singapore. Funnily enough, Sathasivam was partial to whisky and never drank toddy.
“He doesn’t drink the stuff he brews. He hates it because it stinks,” wrote one New Nation reporter.
The Toddy King decided to call it quits after his workers started demanding higher wages, saying that he, too, was being squeezed by high operating costs. Meanwhile, the government refused to pay Sathasivam more for his toddy.
Besides rising costs, it was also getting harder to find tappers. “Indians nowadays think it is low class to tap toddy,” Sathasivam lamented in the wake of the toddy shop closures.
It’s not clear why the government, which operated the last toddy shops, didn’t make more of a concerted effort to preserve toddy in Singapore. But the stigma and its association with lower-class labourers probably didn’t help.
Even when the middle class developed a taste for toddy, they preferred to buy it on the black market at almost four to five times the price (40 to 50 cents per bottle compared to 10 cents per bottle in official toddy shops). Because they thought it was “degrading” to visit toddy shops.
The old stereotype of the drunken labourer still lingers. Singapore continues to bristle at migrant workers drinking and letting loose.
Misinformation doesn’t help either. Random blog posts and TikToks continue to further the misconception that toddy is banned, turning Sharaveen’s revival effort into an uphill battle against both stigma and fiction.
Uphill Climb
Why toddy? And why now, decades after its disappearance? Like every good Grindsets story, there’s a career pivot involved.
Sharaveen says he began his foray into entrepreneurship after leaving his program designer job at a non-profit. A miscommunication at work led to his boss telling him to “shut up and get the job done” on a work group chat.
“I’m not going to be humiliated just for money,” he affirms. “That was when I decided to leave.”
Jaded with corporate life, the man decided to hunker down and start his own business. Before toddy, he got into selling satti soru—Indian claypot rice—from home. Satti soru is traditionally paired with toddy, so Sharaveen naturally began researching the drink.
He was intrigued by the conflicting information found online. On one hand, people were saying it was banned. On the other hand, he couldn’t find any law that explicitly stated such a thing.
“Another driving factor for me was the people around me, saying this cannot be done. To me, it’s like, why cannot be done? If it cannot be done, it should be written in black and white. But it’s not.”
At the time, nobody else was importing toddy. But Sharaveen knew there was a budding demand for it because people would smuggle the drink in illegally from Malaysia. He decided to take the leap and try to bring toddy back to Singapore. Legally.
In late 2019, he began the long and tedious process of contacting the relevant authorities, including the Singapore Police Force, Singapore Customs, and Singapore Food Agency, to obtain permits.
Nobody had tried to bring in toddy, so there was some initial confusion over whose jurisdiction it was, Sharaveen recalls.
“In the end, I cc-ed all of them on one email and told them, “Hey guys, tell me what’s going on. Can I bring in this drink? If can, what is necessary?”
At the same time, he spent months travelling around Malaysia to find a suitable plantation. Finally, in early 2022, Highdrate SG brought in its first shipment.
But there were more hurdles to come.
“The shops that we tried to sell to, they really want to buy, but because they think it’s illegal, they’re scared. This is even when we show them the clearance permit. Because there’s still this very strong stigma against toddy.”
Besides its reputation as a coolie’s booze, there’s also a perception that toddy is unclean. Back in the old days, some toddy did have a hygiene problem, Sharaveen acknowledges.
“They would harvest it, and flies would be flying around. But things are different now,” he says. “In today’s era, food hygiene is very important.”
Things began looking up when several businesses took a chance on Highdrate SG.
“Those vendors were selling for a while, and then, other vendors started to take notice. They probably thought, ‘Nothing happened to them, okay, let’s try.’”
Old Drink, New Spin
Sharaveen’s efforts to educate businesses and consumers are evidently paying off. In 2022, Highdrate SG was bringing in 200 to 300 bottles monthly—now, it brings in an estimated 4,000 bottles each month.
While toddy consumption used to be confined to four shops at St George’s Road, Ord Road, Kampong Java Road and Joo Chiat, it’s now sold at swanky restaurants and bars. Some of Sharaveen’s customers serve it traditional style—in an earthen jar. Others, like lifestyle hotel Artyzen Singapore, have gotten creative with it, incorporating toddy into cocktails.
Another milestone: Since mid-February, selected Sheng Siong Supermarket outlets have begun stocking Highdrate SG’s toddy.
Sharaveen says he’d reached out to various supermarket chains years ago, but Sheng Siong was the only company that was keen on stocking toddy.
“We are definitely very proud that we were able to pull this off. It’s like, we did something out of nothing,” he says, a glint in his eye.
Besides educating the masses that toddy is perfectly legal, Sharaveen tells me he simply wants it to be remembered for what it is—a nutritious, natural beverage that anyone can drink.
“It’s true that toddy has long been associated with the lower class, largely due to misinformation and a lack of awareness about its origins and cultural significance. This perception isn’t reflective of the drink itself but rather of how it has been positioned over time. My goal is to change that.”
To be clear, Sharaveen isn’t trying to erase its checkered past. He just wants people to know that long before it reached our shores, it already had a cultural history. There are mentions of toddy in the Vedas, one of the holy scriptures in Hinduism, Sharaveen explains.
“It’s a natural, heritage-rich beverage with deep roots in tradition, and I want people to see it for what it truly is, not just another alcoholic drink, but as an artisanal product with unique qualities.”
Sathya Selan, the senior mixologist at Artyzen, is another toddy enthusiast trying to get more people to see its appeal.
The Malaysian-born Singaporean tells me that back in the day, toddy was something his family would drink at gatherings. The toddy he remembers was ultra-authentic and was “fermented in the village area next to a river bank” .
Artzyzen Singapore’s bars and restaurants are all about elevating local flavours. So when Sathya heard about Highdrate SG bringing toddy into Singapore, he knew he had to develop a toddy-inspired cocktail.
Toddy’s tang from the fermentation process can be polarising—Sathya likens it to the local divide over durian. But he has devised a new way to enjoy it—an ondeh ondeh-inspired cocktail.
“For those that are not very familiar with the toddy taste, at least they get the idea,” he says.
The base is vodka infused with pandan, which is done in-house. Sathya gives me a little sample of the pandan vodka, and it’s so good I briefly contemplate stealing the whole bottle. The other ingredients are toddy, of course, and syrup to balance out the sharpness. The drink is then topped with gula melaka and toasted coconut flakes around the rim of the glass. It’s very fancy, but I still taste the toddy tang—which I actually like.
The cocktail is a hit with locals and tourists alike, I hear from the hotel’s marketing team.
“I’m actually quite happy to see a lot of youngsters try toddy. And they like it. It reminds me of my childhood when I first tried toddy,” Sathya offers with a grin.
As I nurse my cocktail at the bar, I think of the labourers of the past sipping on their toddy. What would they have thought about a fancy toddy cocktail?
Bottoms Up
Alcohol provision has always intersected with class distinctions. It’s ‘cool’ for the upper class to day drink over power lunches. Low-wage foreign workers face restrictions—and judgment—for doing the same.
For decades, toddy, the “poor man’s beer”, belonged to the part of history we selectively forgot. But thanks to people like Sharaveen and Sathya, it’s seeing a slow revival.
I ask Sharaveen what’s kept him going, even when he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get the green light from the authorities.
“It’s part of Singapore’s history, the coolies, their lifestyle, how they lived. Good or bad, all of it should be known to our future generation.”
And he’s right. Maybe it was a vice for some of our forefathers. But why should that keep us from embracing it?
I happen to think that Sharaveen’s push to bring toddy back to Singapore comes at the perfect time. We’re all tired of big flashy monuments and overly-polished attractions. There’s a renewed interest in the grittier aspects of our past.
It’s no longer enough to accept the narratives we’ve been handed; we’re digging deeper, questioning what’s been erased, and uncovering the truths that were once buried beneath the gloss of a more comfortable version of our shared history.
As a country, we’re moving toward embracing a more nuanced understanding of our yesteryears—the samsui woman mural debate comes to mind.
We’re beginning to appreciate the overlooked, often discomforting moments that tell the real story—the raw, unvarnished truths that resonate far more deeply with us. Toddy, for example, is not merely a “coolie’s drink,” a relic of the past. It’s a symbol—a living, breathing testament to the sweat, sacrifice, and sheer resilience of the workers who laid the very foundation of Singapore.
These stories have long been hidden in plain sight, and now, we’re ready to imbibe.
