MUAR:It is not a drink for just anybody. Some Vietnamese workers employed at furniture factories here are causing a stir with their special brew — homemade liquor fermented with the carcass of monitor lizards.
They claim that the concoction strengthened their kidneys, and best of all, improved their libido.
Locals, keen to make some extra cash, are supplying the workers with the monitor lizards (Varanus salvator) which is the essential ingredient of the drink.
“The Vietnamese workers seem to be willing to pay a rather high price for the reptile,” said a monitor lizard supplier who wished to remain anonymous.
The choice lizard for the brewing process are those weighing under three kilogrammes. They cost between RM20 and RM30 each.
The reptile would be placed alive into a container filled with the liquor.
The drink would then be sold to other foreign workers at RM5 per glass.
Several foreign workers in Bakri near here yesterday said they drank the “tonic” to get extra energy to carry out their strenuous jobs.
“It is really good. The drink is also supposed to improve our sexual prowess,” said a 24-year-old Vietnamese worker who wanted to be identified as Min.
He said some of his fellow workers also knew how to prepare the drink and sometimes, they shared the cost of brewing it themselves.
Min said the “special” ingredient was accidently discovered last year when a monitor lizard, which entered the workers’ quarters, fell into a container of the liquor and drowned.
He said the workers enjoyed the taste of that liquor and it had since become a craze among them.
The workers also bought bigger monitor lizards but the animal would be cooked and eaten after brewing the liquor.
However, it is illegal to brew the liquor, known by locals as samsu biawak.
On Feb 25, about 12.30am, a police team raided a single-storey terrace house in Bakri which a group of Vietnamese workers were renting.
They discovered a container filled with the liquor and a monitor lizard carcass inside it.
Three of the workers were detained to facilitate investigations for preparing the drink.