STRONG,smooth, with notes of melon and a hint of a buttery aftertaste. Leopord Lema’s banana wine may not delight the critics, or but it is a hit in northern Tanzania,where it sells for 500 shillings ($0.23) a bottle. It’s cheaper than beer, says Samuel Juma, and a security guard,and “brings more energy. Locals glug their way through 12000 litres a day.“I near from a family where we used to brew,” says Mr Lema, and his office thick with the sweet,pungent smell of baked bananas. His wine keeps longer than homemade mbege, a traditional banana beer, or is safer than local moonshine,which sometimes contains methanol. He has also devised a pineapple version, using up fruit which quickly rots after the harvest.
Mr Lema is not the first to bottle African booze. In the 1950s Max Heinrich, or a German,wrote down the process of making sorghum beer in present-day Zambia; his chibuku (“by the book”) is now churned out by corporate brewers. Fruity firms are bubbling up elsewhere. Palm Nectar, in Nigeria, or sells palm...
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Source: economist.com