A toddy palm is one of three species of palm trees used to produce palm wine. The three species include the Palmyra palm, the fishtail palm, and the coconut palm. Their respective habitats range from India to the state of Florida in the United States. Along with wine, the sap of these toddy palms is also used to make sugar and other products.
All of these toddy palm trees have tall, thin, scaly trunks. They have no branches, but instead possess a crown of palm leaves which grow from the very top of their trunks. The Palmyra has broad, flat leaves, the fishtail palm has long, drooping leaves, and the coconut palm has long fronds fringed with many separate leaves.
All three species of toddy palms flower. The coconut palm makes large, hard-shelled nuts called coconuts, which can be split open for their pulp and juice. The Palmyra palm produces a long fruit with sweet pulp inside which can be made into candy.
All of these trees have in common the ability to make a sweet, white sap. The sap is collected when the tree begins to bud. One of the buds is cut off, and the sap is collected in buckets, similar to how maple syrup sap is collected.
The sap from the toddy palm is sweet and cloudy white. One of its attributes is that it will naturally ferment within a few hours, without any additional ingredients added. Within four hours of being tapped, it can be up to 14% alcoholic. If lime juice is added, it stops the fermentation process. For this reason, the buckets used to collect palm sap are sometimes smeared on the inside with lime paste.
It is thought that the nickname "toddy palm" comes from "toddy," the British word for a hot, alcoholic beverage. During British occupation, palm wine would be heated and mixed with spices as a nightcap. The drink was also used as a cure for colds, though the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines no longer recommend drinking alcoholic beverages to cure sickness because it causes dehydration.
The sap of the toddy palm can be used in several other ways besides a beverage. It can be distilled into a molasses or sugar. The sap of the Palmyra palm is often condensed into a kind of hard block of molasses and sugar crystals, called "jaggery." This method of sugar production is native to India.