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Palm wine: A drink the British could not kill

 By Adetokunbo Abiola

In the days of yore, before Britannia came to the shore of Nigeria, palm wine was the 'mother of all drinks.' British missionaries, sailors and soldiers came, bringing drinks such as Jack Daniel's, Old Toms and Johnnie Walker as well as their muskets, ships and rifles. British drinks soon dominated the market, pushing all local drinks to the background.

Despite the British invasion, palm wine did not die, remaining popular to this day. In many places in Nigeria, palm wine is relished from dawn to dusk. When you hear of places such as abe igi (under the tree), abe oparun (under the bamboo forest), Iva Valley, it means a palm wine joint is around the corner

    A lot of people have misconceptions about palm wine, mistaking it for ogogoro (local gin), burukutu and others. The truth of the matter is palm wine is neither ogogoro nor burukutu. These other drinks are prostitutes, derived from palm wine or other cereals. While palm wine is their mother, the rest are children. When my friend, Biodun, called palm wine ‘mother of all drinks’ sometime ago, I agreed with him.

    Without a doubt, palm wine is not Smirnoff. The latter is simply vodka mixed with lemon. It is called a cocktail. Since palm wine is not a cock and does not have a tail, it cannot be compared to Smirnoff.Why do people never stop comparing the two?

    So what is palm wine? It is what makes husbands leave their wives and children and take refuge under the tree. It is the reason people leave the maddening crowd of the city for the serene atmosphere of the village. It made the former Eastern region survive for years without oil or cocoa. Someone said the premier of the region then, Michael Okpara, deserves an award for paying proper respect to palm wine.

    Concretely, palm wine is a beverage derived from the sap of an oil palm, coconut palm or raffia palm tree. Never allow it ferment for hours, certainly not up to a day,or it becomes strong and sour, having an acidic taste, something close to vinegar. Taken fresh, palm wine is sweet and contains not much alcohol, a drink to be enjoyed by all well-meaning men and women, although some traditional men say no woman who drinks palm wine can be well-meaning.

    But that is not our business. For us, palm wine is more affordable than commercially brewed beer. No protocol is observed when it is drunk at a joint. Not unlike when our forefathers drank it before the coming of Jack Daniel's and Johnny Walker, it is sipped from a cup or calabash.

    No, no, you don’t get tipsy after drinking it, unlike burukutu, ogogoro, and pito. After a cup or two, it gives a slight but healthy high, not the kind that makes people go home and cause trouble with their wives and children. Why is this so. The alcoholic content, compared to its competitors like akpetesi and pito, is low.

    Due to its popularity in Nigeria, every tribe has a name for it. The Yoruba calls it emu or oguro, the Urhobo calls it udiamwen, the igbo calls it nnamaya ogwo, and the Bini calls it ayon. It is also known as ‘Sapele Water’, ‘Push-Me-I-Push-You’, ‘Higher Ground’ and others by die-hard lovers who speak Pidgin English.

    Synthetic palm wine has been produced in the laboratories of universities and research institutions, but don’t tell the ordinary man in the street it is palm wine. If he does not curse you, he will ask, “In which way is it better than Johnnie Walker?” Men who visit palm wine joints want their palm wine fresh, natural and tasty; they don’t have time for fertilizer-induced or laboratory-produced palm wine. They like the unique taste, refreshing quality, and the rural touch of palm wine. If it is not supplied by a palm wine tapper, they believe it can never be palm wine.

    And they are ready to spend money on the accessories of palm wine (which invariably causes trouble with Madam at home). It is drunk while aficionados eat goat meat pepper soup, cow meat pepper soup or bush meat pepper soup (my personal favorite). For those who cannot bear the crunchy toughness of meat (how unlucky can some people be), they drink it while eating fresh fish pepper soup. Some people, especially those living near rivers, drink it while eating sweet crocodile meat (how lucky can some people be).

    There is another innovative formula for drinking palm wine. People guilty of this are those who can’t break the yoke of commercially brewed beer. Other prime candidates are those who like something bitter on their tongue. In this method, people mix palm wine and stout to form a hybrid of half stout and palm wine. Aficionados of palm wine look on the rebels with pity, if not scorn. Why can’t they learn to enjoy the exquisite richness of the 'mother of all drinks’ without adulterating it with poison?

    Of course, the richness of palm wine is not just in the taste. Even without reading a medical journal from Cambridge University, people say the drink is a harmless aphrodisiac, enhancing libido without the side-effects of drugs sold by road-side herb sellers. People say it is far superior to famous ogogoro in this department. My friend, Biodun, a lively, die-hard patron of palm wine, swears it increases sperm count. No wife will complain about the strength of a palm wine-loving husband, he says.

    In this post-Johnnie Walker era when most drinks can send a man to his early grave, people say palm wine clears the eyes. All the yeast in the market cannot out-perform palm wine in clearing the cornea of impurities. Does your child suffer from measles? No need to worry. Once you bath him with palm wine, people say, the measles will clear from the body. In this time of global economic recession when money has become scarce, you don’t need to waste it by taking your child to the clinic or buying expensive chemicalised drugs from a pharmacy. See what a keg of palm wine can do!

    However, it does even more. Experts say palm wine business gives job to many dwellers of rural, semi-rural and urban areas. The population of militants, 'area boys', local strongmen and other disgruntled people is reduced by this singular gesture. For bus conductors, drivers and other road transport workers, it makes them agile and alert when they do their work. Even doctors attest they are less nervous after taking a calabash of palm wine.

    Despite Britannia and Jack Daniel’s, palm wine retains its traditional function. It is a lubricant of social activities. People marry with palm wine. People appease the gods with palm wine. People strike deals over kegs of palm wine. People settle dispute over palm wine. Sam Loco, noted Nollywood actor (may his soul rest in peace), once got a job at a palm wine joint. No ceremony is successful or complete in Yoruba land and Igbo land without palm wine.

    Who drinks palm wine? The question reminds me of a Yoruba legend. There was a lake filled with palm wine but polluted by a woman. When people refused to drink from it, the lake dried up, palm trees growing on its bed. Years later, one man tasted the sap of one of the tree, rediscovered palm wine but got too drunk and hurt himself because he drank alone. Since then people said palm wine must not be drunk alone but in a group.

    It is no wonder bankers, traders, businessmen, engineers, teachers and others drink palm wine together in a joint. There is no preferential treatment when it comes to sitting arrangement. All form a people’s parliament, and it is practical democracy in action. Everybody is equal since no speaker, deputy speaker or majority leader of the parliament is appointed. The thread uniting everyone is the search for enjoyment. It is as though people swear to an oath of companionship after the palm wine tapper supplies the drink.

    The tools of the palm wine tapper are a climbing rope, a short cutlass for cutting palm fronds, a tapping knife and a small gallon. The tapper cuts the palm frond, exposing the soft tissue at the top of the tree. The knife is used to pierce a hole into the tissue, allowing for the exit of the wine. A tiny bamboo or a hollow instrument is connected to the hole so the wine can flow into the gallon.

    Some tappers may want to separate their bond with the palm tree. After cutlasses and hoes are used to dig a hole around the base of the tree, it is slashed and made to fall to a partial incline to allow for the rapid flow of the wine into a gallon. The tappers take the gallon to the vendor, who serves the drink to customers while music plays.

    To show the versatility of palm wine, it has inspired its own music. It is the only drink with this distinction. According to legend, Spanish and Portuguese sailors berthing on the Lagos Port lent the guitar and style to African shipmates. When the latter took the sound to the palm wine joints in Lagos, aficionados made input and refined it into a new style a fusion of natural rhythm, palm wine slang and local parlance. The resulting palm wine music became popular, making stars of early twentieth century musicians such as Fatai Rolling Dollar, Julius Araba, Irowodede Denge and others. It later influenced palm wine drinkers club ('kegites'), high-life, and juju music.

    As palm wine is popular in music, so it is accounted for in literature. In the book titled Palm Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutuola wrote about a character who travelled to 'The Land of The Dead' to search for his beloved palm wine tapper (no other drink in history has inspired anyone to travel to the 'land of the dead'). In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe writes about the social importance of palm wine in Igbo land. According to Achebe, palm wine, like kola nut, is the oil people use to eat pounded yam.

    Despite the presence of CNN, BBC and Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), palm wine makes people form better opinion about politics. How can this be? Since it attracts all sorts of people to a joint, aficionados get information they cannot from news channels. I learned Muammar Gaddafi died in a palm wine joint. People did not know Egyptians chased Hosni Mubarak from Egypt until they went to a palm wine hangout. Even politicians get their news from abe-igi, the reason they gather at a palm wine joint in Benin City called PEOPLES PARLIAMENT.

    In the rural areas, people who drink palm wine get other kinds of news. Though palm wine is not alcoholic, it creates an atmosphere that loosens the tongue; and gossip, indispensable to human interaction, becomes the practice. Want to know the wife cheating on her husband or the husband cheating on his wife? Or the husband who goes to church without taking his bath? Or the husband perpetually beaten by his wife? Who is in debt and doesn't want to pay? The answers are right there in the palm wine joint.

    However, palm wine is not just a Nigerian phenomenon. Like brands such as David Beckham, Tiger Wood and Manny Pacquiao, it has world-wide fame. In Malaysia , the ‘mother of all drinks’ is called Palm Toddy. In the Philippines, tuba refers to the freshly harvested palm wine. In Indonesia , it is known as tuak. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kabila’s people call it nsambi. Ghanians call it nsafufuo.

    Even though the popularity of palm is healthy and going strong, challenges exist. Die-hard patrons say palm wine tappers are becoming scarce. Young people are shying from the lucrative business even when white-collar jobs are nonexistent in the cities. However, many are unperturbed. Since Jesus turned water into wine, they say, people have never lacked palm wine. Besides, the young ones will come back because academic degrees without gainful employment is useless. Hunger will make them run back to the oil palm tree.

    Also cynics say palm wine can be dangerous even though it has less alcoholic content than its rivals. While falling a palm tree in Sapele Tech years ago, I remember an uncle almost ran amok when he drank too much palm wine from a freshly-cut tree. I cannot forget that, same way I cannot forget eating bats and drinking palm wine at Great Ife university. But my uncle has himself to blame. Palm wine lovers say the drink is best taken in moderation.

    What is the ultimate benefit of palm wine. I’m forced to remember an anecdote about three men – a banker, a fisherman and a palm wine aficionado. “Where in Nigeria is the air better than an air conditioner?” they were asked. The banker said, “In a bank.” The questioner shook his head. “Near the ocean,” said the fisherman. The questioner shook his head. “In the palm wine joint,” the aficionado said. The questioner gave him the prize. In these days of falling naira rates, a palm wine joint is the best place to get fresh air and drown one’s sorrows.