According to the law, bakery shops need to have valid liquor permit to sell rum cakes and liquor chocolates.
It's not just cakes. Liquor chocolate and even the common rum-and-raisin bar have become acasualty of the police and excise department's crackdown on illegal consumption of alcohol. "Merely a spoonful of rum goes into the batter of a 1-kg cake. If one uses essence, two drops suffice," says the baker from Dhobi Talao who declined the order. "Even with such minuscule amounts, the flavour is so strong that the whole room smells of rum when you put the cake out to cool." A chocolate bar of 15 to 18 gm contains barely two or three drops of rum. However, those who are not conversant with the recipe, like the raiding excise or police parties, are bound to think that substantial quantities of alcohol are being used.
"We barely make a profit of a hundred rupees on a 1-kg cake. It is not a fast-selling item either. At best we sell two or three units every week. It is unwise to jeopardise business for one item. So we have decided to stop preparing rum cake for now," adds the baker. "We will procure a proper liquor permit."
The confectioner does not feign ignorance of the rule, admitting that this is one of those archaic laws that neither the excise department nor the police had invoked before and was believed to have been buried under the sands of time. "We have been making cakes and chocolates using real rum and whisky, including fine Scotch, for 13-14 years. However, we were shocked to read how an elderly lady was taken from her home to the police station for making liquor chocolates."
Chocolatier Reena Anand from Andheri points out that it is mostly women who pursue chocolate-making as a hobby who have been affected by this rule. "There are around 200 to 300 such entrepreneurs in Mumbai, in fact around 50 in Lokhandwala Complex alone. They busy themselves with perfecting their recipes and sourcing the best material. I wonder how many of them even know that they need a liquor permit to add a few drops of liquor to chocolate."
Times View
The effect that antiquated laws have had on Mumbai can only be described as bizarre and Kafkaesque. Who would have thought that rum cakes and liqueur chocolates would become rarities in Mumbai? Our current crop of babus needs to understand that life has changed beyond recognition from the era when these quixotic laws were framed; they don't need to implement these relics from the past. And our legislators should just scrap these laws; for corrupt cops, these are weapons to blackmail people and wheedle money out of them. Mindless application of bizarre rules is making Mumbai a very sad place.
