Gin Safari 2: Bitter and Twisted

Just some of the tonic drinks we found in Wenty Tropical Foods

I recently reported on our expedition to darkest Forest Gate in search of two African gins. But what started it all was our curiosity about some African bitters we’d been told were rather tasty. During our safari we did manage to find some, plus some Caribbean tonics and soft drinks that were new to us—including the eye-catching Bedroom Bully which, like a number of tonics, sells itself mainly on a claim to boost male, erm, stamina.

Back at the lab DBS couldn’t wait to crack open the Bedroom Bully. In appearance it is brown and cloudy, like a glass of flat Coke from which someone has clumsily swigged after eating crackers. Its smell is vegetal, reminiscent of dock leaves and damp roots, with hints of orange, gravy granules and cheesy feet. After all this the flavour is unexpectedly thin, but with a pronounced aftertaste of rusty metal. David declines to finish it.

Herb Afrik Gin Bitters is 40% ABV and is sold in 70cl bottles as well as the smaller flask we purchased, intended to be drunk neat as well as mixed with gin, beer or soft drinks. The term “gin bitters” is derived from the introduction of European botanically flavoured alcohols but the drink has nothing in common with gin. In fact it doesn’t go into detail about what is in it but the website observes that, “The ingredients are carefully selected for their potency, and other beneficial properties. It is appreciated for its pleasant taste and soothing effect while it answers the growing need of consumers for a drink with potent and beneficial herbal ingredients.” So clearly it is intended to have some effect, but they don’t say what. (It’s interesting how no one sells gin on its medicinal properties any more…). Unless it is all just a euphemism for a cheap way to get drunk. It’s a rusty brown colour and the predominant smell and taste is ginger. It fact it reminds me of one of those Dutch speculoos spiced biscuits. Mixing it with Castle Bridge gin from the same distillers improves it, though frankly the gin is better without the bitters.

Alomo bitters is the other one recommended by Dr Leizaola. Made by Kasapreko in Ghana, it is bottled at 42% and again does not detail the “carefully chosen plant extracts” going into it, but asserts that it is “the best and most reliable restorative provided by nature” and “promotes vitality especially in Men”. It smells of boot polish and is very bitter on the palate. To me it tastes vaguely of mussels. Adding tonic water makes everything taste worse.

Sea Moss is a type of seaweed that is considered health-giving in the Caribbean, once again having alleged aphrodisiac and potency-boosting properties. Caribbean Flavours Sea Moss and Peanut sounded intriguing enough and smells enticingly of coconut and Baileys—in fact there is no coconut or alcohol in it, although there is milk. It actually tastes a bit like Baileys too but is disturbingly gloopy from the seaweed and has an unpleasant metallic aftertaste. Adding rum improves it but I couldn’t stomach much.

I also bought a can of straightforward sea moss drink (flavoured with vanilla). Boy is this stuff disturbing: it has the look and texture of snot (see photo). It is stomach-turningly repulsive and I could only manage a small sip. I was even scared to pour it down the sink in case it set in the pipes.

Not a glass of mucus but a sea moss beverage

Finally we cracked open a bottle of Solo Grape Soda, a Trinidadian beverage. I think David was attracted by the label, which is splendid and looks like it was designed in the 1930s. It has a violently synthetic colour and an astonishingly foul odour—we eventually agreed that it smells like someone has vomited in a Chinese supermarket. The taste is primarily sugar and water but that stench predominates.

DBS had also bought some other curios, such as “Sof Drink Kola Champagne”, but we’d had enough fun for now and needed a stiff G&T to cleanse our palates before any permanent damage was done.

I have to say that if Herb Afrik and Alomo were the best bitters that Dr Leizola encountered (and there were very many on display in his exhibition) then I think I’ll sit tight with Angostura for a bit.

Gin safari!

The precious map that led us to our prize

Of course we’d all heard the rumours. But it wasn’t until an old wino staggered into the IAE offices and inconveniently expired in the wingback in reception that we realised it might be true: clutched in his right hand (after we opened his fingers with a bolt-cutter) was a map—torn and charred but unmistakeable.

In our report on the recent exhibition about bitters we mentioned that the curator Ricardo Leizaola regarded Herb Afrik and Alomo Bitters as the tastiest examples of all the “world bitters” he encountered. I had noticed that the makers of Herb Afrik, the Ghanaian distillery GIHOC, also produced three gins: Castle Bridge, Lawyer (with a label that is surely a close reference to Gordon’s Export) and Betsuo. Curious, I’d tried contacting them but had failed to elicit a response.

Meanwhile DBS had become interested in a Ugandan gin called Uganda Waragi. So when our vagrant friend—who turned out to be a burnt-out ex-bartender famous for his trips into the Interior to source rare ingredients, and widely regarded as insane after the tragedy with his Puffer Fish and Durian Fruit Daquiri—snuffed it holding a map with a big “X” marking the fabled land of Forest Gate, we knew it was a sign. Saddling the club mule (startled at being asked to leave the stables for the first time in 15 years) we loaded up with iron rations of foie gras and Sauternes and headed up country.

Forest Gate turns out to be a hive of multicultural trading. David had actually established that one shop, Pascheal Exotics, did stock Uganda Waragi and had reserved a few bottles. But on the way there and back we ducked into various trading establishments looking for the bitters—when we eventually found some the store also sold Castle Bridge. “All the way from Ghana,” the shopkeeper said with a mixture of pride and wistfulness. “It’s lovely.” My curiosity was well and truly piqued: what could be so different about this gin that it was worth importing to a small shop in north-west London? Yet the retail price of £12 for Castle Bridge and £15 for Waragi was cheap enough to make you wonder just how rough this was going to be, when bottles of domestically-produced Gordon’s and Beefeater sell for £14–15.

Interestingly Uganda Waragi also comes in soft plastic sachets, each a couple of double measures. It has a strangely utilitarian feel, as if it had come from a UN aid parcel, and there is something sinister about a delivery method that of course must be drunk all in one go. I’m told a lot of drinks are sold this way in Africa, though some campaigners are trying to get the format banned.

Back at the Institute we dashed to the lab without even brushing the trail dust from our topees, eager to put the drinks through their paces. Castle Bridge is bottled at 40% ABV and has a very juniper-led nose, almost a bit ham-fisted in its unsubtlety. Neat the palate is light and astringent. I always think of Beefeater as rather ethereal and straight-backed but compared to Castle Bridge it seems fat, spicy and complex. SW4 is a juniper-led brand specifically intended to be quintessentially ginny but again, compared to Castle Bridge’s pencil-lead juniper fixation, SW4’s sweet orange notes are emphasised. Mind you Castle Bridge is a perfectly creditable gin. It’s more palatable than Hogarth and about the same price, while DBS assures me it’s considerably pleasanter than Richmond, his current benchmark for repulsiveness.

The name and the styling are clearly trying to evoke an Old World European sophistication and the year “1792” is emblazoned across the top label, though the significance of this date is never mentioned. It clearly calls itself a “London Dry Gin” though I wonder whether it really fulfils the EU requirements. Neither the bottle nor the website give anything away about the botanicals* but what originally roused my curiosity was the fact that it is made from molasses neutral spirit. This sounded rather exotic, but in fact sugar beet molasses turns out to be the base for quite a bit of mass-market gin and about a third of European vodka production.

I dig out some Gordon’s green and mix up a couple of G&Ts with Schweppes tonic, using Castle Bridge in one and Gordon’s in the other. I offer them blind to DBS and ask which he prefers. Without much deliberation he chooses the Ghanaian gin. In truth even the 37.5% Gordon’s green is more complex than Castle Bridge in my opinion, but the latter has an appealing freshness to it and, as I suspected, when mixed with tonic it performs its role in the partnership perfectly diligently. I suspect its simplicity might actually make it ideal with more elaborate tonics.

So there you have it, ladies and gentleman: at £2–3 cheaper per bottle Castle Bridge is better value than Gordon’s (and a higher ABV too).

Our booty for the day. Yes, that's a carton of Egg Nog

At £15 a bottle Uganda Waragi (40% ABV) is dearer. The term “waragi’ is actually a generic one for locally distilled spirit, made from all kinds if things including banana and cassava. The word apparently means “war gin” and was coined by European ex-pats, referring to the practice of drinking before battle for “Dutch courage”; the local word for such spirits was enguli. I suspect the actual “gin” style of flavouring was brought by the settlers themselves and adopted locally. Despite decades of legislation plenty of the stuff is distilled illegally—only last year 80 people died from drinking toxic banana moonshine.

The beverage that is branded as Uganda Waragi is made by East African Breweries Ltd, makers of Tusker beer and ultimately owned by Diageo. It is triple distilled from millet and its sales represent a third of the entire spirits market in Uganda. Interestingly, although this product clearly is what you would call gin, the label only uses the word in very small writing near the top, and I have seen pictures of some labelling which doesn’t mention gin at all. (Perhaps it is only labelled as gin for export.)

It’s quite sweet, floral and spicy compared to Castle Bridge, with a remarkable perfume to it, though I feel that it could possibly tend towards cloying, with something in the smell that reminds me of plasticine. Up against SW4 it actually has a similar overall profile though the latter is more complex as well as more juniper-driven.

DBS carted three bottles of the stuff away. I’m assuming this batch is harmless, though, now I think of it, I haven’t heard from him in a while…

* The label does helpfully explain that it is "blended from superior ingredients according to an old secret formula".

To find out how we got on with the bitters, plus various strange soft drinks, tune in for Gin Safari 2, coming soon…

How we like to take our medicine

Some bitters are now sold with one specific benefit in mind

Given that alcohol is, most of the time, fundamentally bad for you, it’s interesting how often we as a species turn to it in the hope that it will improve our health. I suppose there is the idea that anything that makes you feel good must be doing you good, plus the known preservative capabilities: in fact in many cases the alcohol may simply be a vehicle for the cure. But there is an interesting cycle of medicine and recreation. Gin started life probably as a tincture of health-giving juniper berries; by the time Englishmen in far-flung malarial parts of the Empire were looking for something to wash down their medicinal quinine the gin to which they turned was fully recreational. And it was not long before the quinine tonic was being consumed for fun too.

Dr Leizaola explains the medicinal/recreational interface to DBS

Visual Anthropologist Dr Ricardo Leizaola recently put on a modest exhibition (now sadly closed) at Goldsmiths College, in New Cross, south London, on just such alcohol-based healing. Originally intended simply as a compendium of remedies, the display became more complex, illustrating “the intersections between and among nominally different ways of thinking” as Dr Leizaola discovered a vast range of tinctures from different cultures—all for sale in multicultural London.

Here among things we recognise, such as Angostura, Peychaud’s and the offerings of the Bitters Truth, we see Yoyo, Taabea, Adutwumwai and Dr Aladdin’s The 7 Keys. Dr Laizaola makes a good point by showing how one can buy Dandelion and Burdock Bitters marketed as a cocktail ingredient at the same time that you can buy it as a health-giving tonic—ironically even as a “detox” tincture (and this is something that is 45% alcohol). It’s easy to forget how herbal snifters such as Jägermeister, Becherovka and Chartreuse were originally medicinal.

"Gin bitters"—apparently rather tasty

Dr Leizaola himself remembers how, growing up in Venezuela, it was common to stuff a handful of watercress into a bottle of rum to make a tonic. “Watercress is used more as medicine than as salad green in Venezuela,” he says. “It is boiled in milk and given to those with chest-related problems and colds. It is macerated in rum for the same problems but also used for recreational purposes. It is actually
one of the most popular bitters, with a peppery flavor and clear colour. Radishes are also macerated in rum or vodka as a warmer and appetizer—it tastes quite good despite the funny smell!” I think we’re going to have to get busy in the Institute’s lab…

Other products, once sold as a cure-all, are now marketed in some parts of the world entirely as enhancers of male sexual potency—a video screen shows a TV commercial for Mamajuana Kalembu, from the Dominican Republic, in which a young buck eyes a nymph emerging from the sea towards him…then straight past him into the arms of a goofy nerd. His secret? You guessed it. Meanwhile one Caribbean product seems to rely solely on its name—“Bedroom Bully”—to make the point, while Mighty Power and Resurrection Formula don’t leave too much to the imagination either.

Even today restorative/detoxifying tinctures are sold as a conceptual
opposite of booze, yet containing as much alcohol by volume as whisky

The actual content of these tinctures varies enormously: in London markets you can buy dry herb/spice/bark mixes so you can knock up you own mamajuana and Dr Leizaola bought a few examples, clearly containing different ingredients, despite claiming to be the same thing. Perhaps it’s all a testament to our universal need to believe we can change our health and fortunes by eating strange, rare things.

In parts of Africa there is a tradition of “gin bitters”. English colonists brought with them their own traditional infusions—gin and tonic—and the name stuck. (I had guessed that the oddly-named King George Bitters—“God’s Blessing”—which claims to cure at least seven different ailments, hailed from some ex-colony, as I know that Trinidad’s Angostura* was an official supplier of bitters to George V, but Dr Leizaola tells me it actually comes from this country.)

Now Ghanian Herb Afrik Gin Bitters is sold** for recreational consumption too—and is actually Dr Leizaola’s top tip for tastiness, along with Alomo Bitters from the Kasapreko company, also in Ghana. Expect some cocktail recipes on this blog soon.

More photos from the exhibition may be found at our Flickr page.

Dr Leizaola’s tip for buying many of these products is Kumasi Market in Granville Arcade, Brixton, London.


* Actually invented by a German doctor in Venezuala, as a cure for stomach upset and fever.
** By GIHOC Distilleries—who also produce a couple of "gins" based on molasses spirit, which sound intriguing.