''Intus'' was a traditional pre-colonial

Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...

alcoholic drink An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The c ...

from the Visayas Islands and

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) ( Jawi: مينداناو) is the second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the island is part of an island group of ...

. It was made by boiling sugarcane juice until it reduces to a thick syrup. It was then allowed to cool and mixed with the bark of the ''kabarawan'' tree ('' Neolitsea villosa'') and fermented. The word ''intus'' (or ''initus'') means " reduced" or "liquid thickened by boiling", from the Old

Visayan Visayans ( Visayan: ''mga Bisaya''; ) or Visayan people are a Philippine ethnolinguistic group or metaethnicity native to the Visayas, the southernmost islands of Luzon and a significant portion of Mindanao. When taken as a single ethnic group ...

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

''itus'' ("to reduce"). Like the '' kabarawan'' drink, ''intus'' is extinct. The tradition was lost during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. Among the

Lumad people The Lumad are a group of Austronesian indigenous people in the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for Katawhang Lumad (Literally: "indigenous people"), the autonym officially adopte ...

of Mindanao, ''intus'' was flavored with ''langkawas'' (''

Alpinia galanga ''Alpinia galanga'', a plant in the ginger family, bears a rhizome used largely as an herb in Unani medicine and as a spice in Arab cuisine and Southeast Asian cookery. It is one of four plants known as " galangal". Its common names include ...

'') or ''pal-la'' ('' Cordyline fruticosa'') roots.

References

Fermented drinks Philippine alcoholic drinks Philippine cuisine {{Philippines-cuisine-stub

See also

References