MAMPOER – STRONG DRINKS THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAY

Fermenting Process:
Use a 200 litre plastic drum.
Take a fruit like peaches, crush enough of it and fill the drum up to half with it.
Fill up the drum with water and leave for about two weeks. No sugar or yeast must be added, as the natural content of these ingredients already inside the fruit, is high enough.

Inspect your concoction often. As soon as you see small bubbles forming on the surface, it means that the fermenting process has started. When the fermenting process stops, it is time to prepare the concoction for the next process. Bale out the fermented liquid into 20 litres plastic containers through cheesecloth.

Steam Kettle Process:
Find enough 750 ml or litre glass bottles, which can be sealed, for your final product to end up in.
Get a pressure cooker or a water boiler of about ten litres capacity and about five metres of 15 mm to 25 mm of copper tubing. Convert and modify the cooker or boiler so that the copper tubing can be fastened and unfastened to the top lid by means of male and female brass ferrules. You may need a capable person for the threading or brazing task. Roll the copper tubing into coils. The cooker or boiler must be of good quality stainless steel, so as not to chemically react to the process or heat.

When your equipment is ready it must look like something as illustrated below:
The lid of your boiler or cooker must have a tight seal, not allowing any evaporation, except through the copper tubing.

The idea is now to pour the fermented liquid into the cooker and boil the liquid. The principle here is that during the evaporation process through the copper tubing, the alcoholic content of the liquid will cool off first, to form a liquid, while the water content will escape through the tubing as steam.

The secret here, to get a quality product, is to boil the alcohol a second time, to get rid of all possible harmful impurities.
You can now start to fill up your bottles and treat your friends to one of the most exquisite alcoholic drinks available, but beware – it is tasty and extremely potent, with or without mix, and may floor you if you do not use it slowly and in moderation.

Adding sugar at the start of the process will increase alcoholic content of the end product, which is totally unnecessary.
Adding some yeast at the start of the process will hasten the fermenting time.
You can repeat the process with any type of fruit, ending up with a variety of MAMPOER types and tastes (“MAMPOER” is the Afrikaans name for this type of strong alcoholic drink, traditionally brewed by moonshine brewers and fruit farmers in South Africa – nowadays only licensed brewers may produce it for commercial purposes).

Before the steam kettle process, the fermented liquid can be used as a beer; if you store it long enough, it becomes wine.

SOUTH AFRICAN GINGER SODA

Although it is a soft drink, in South Africa it is traditionally known as “Ginger Beer”, produced by the first European settlers in South Africa, in the then wild country, in the absence of supplies and amenities. It made a comeback in later depression and war years when goods were scarce. We do not know how many adaptations have been made to the recipe since then, but this is how my mother makes it, as passed on to her by her ancestors and modified to the taste of our family members.

Ingredients:
· 9 litres of water
· Tablespoon ginger root, thinly sliced and bruised with the back of a knife or ginger powder
· Tablespoon of Jamaica ginger powder
· 6 cups of brown sugar
· ½ cup lemon juice essence
· ½ cup raisins
· Tablespoon cream of tartar
· 1 yeast cake dissolved in a cup of warm water

Method:
Combine all ingredients in a plastic container. Let the mixture stand in a warm place for 48 hours. When the raisins are floating on the surface, line a funnel with cheesecloth and strain the liquid into two clean 4.5 litres jugs. Cover them tightly and let them stand overnight. Chill well before drinking.

MAKE YOUR OWN LIQUEURS

THE BASIC EQUIPMENT:
1. One litre saucepan
2. Measuring cup
3. Measuring spoons
4. One litre bottle, empty and clean

BASIC INGREDIENTS:
1. Spirits: vodka, gin, brandy, scotch or grain alcohol
2. White granulated sugar
3. Water
4. Fruit extracts. Various brands of extracts are available at home winemaking stores.
The French brand “Noirot” is highly recommended.
5. Glycerine. Adds body and smoothness.

BASIC METHOD:
1. Make your sweet or medium syrup in the following way:
Sweet syrup – 2 cups sugar to 1 cup water
Medium Syrup – 1 cup sugar to 1/2 cup water
Combine the sugar and water in the saucepan and bring it just to a boil. Cool for few
minutes.
2. Pour the required amount of syrup into your clean bottle.
3. Add the extract.
4. Add glycerine and colouring if required.
5. Fill the bottle to the top with the spirits. A liqueur made in a quart bottle will have a
stronger alcoholic taste than one made in a fifth bottle.
6. Close the bottle and shake. Cool before drinking.

CHERRY BRANDY
1 bottle Noirot (or similar) Cherry Brandy Extract
1 cup medium sugar syrup
Brandy

APRICOT BRANDY
1 bottle Noirot (or similar) Apricot Brandy Extract
Brandy
(no sugar syrup)

CREME DE COCOA
1 bottle Noirot (or similar) Cocoa Extract
2 cups sweet sugar syrup
Vodka or grain alcohol

CREME DE MENTHE
1 bottle Noirot (or similar) Green Mint Extract
2 cups sweet sugar syrup
Vodka or grain alcohol

HOMEMADE COFFEE LIQUEUR
Ingredients:
3 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup Yuban Instant Coffee
1 Vanilla bean (available at most health food stores if not at your local supermarket’s
spice section)
One 750 ml bottle of vodka

Dissolve sugar into three and three quarter cups warm water. Bring syrup mixture to a boil and boil hard for 15 minutes. While syrup is boiling, dissolve coffee into three quarter cups of warm water. Add vanilla bean, split lengthwise. When the syrup boiling time is up, remove from stove and allow it to cool for five minutes. Then add coffeevanilla bean mixture, and allow it to cool to room temperature. When cool, add all the vodka, stir lightly and pour into clean gallon jug. Allow it to stand for two weeks at room temperature before drinking. Enjoy! But be careful. This is a potent drink.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN HOME BREW

This site is presented as information only. The author is not responsible if this recipe is so pleasing that you drink the brew excessively. The necessary ingredients are usually available from most markets, and the bottle caper and caps may be found at most hardware stores.
You will also need a crock, about 45 litres and a hydrometer of the type designed for brewing. The purpose of the hydrometer is to determine when the sugar content of the mix is less than 1%. It will float on top of the mix for about 3 or 4 days, and when it sinks you are ready to bottle the brew. You will need a collection of empty bottles – the quart size is best. Be sure they are super clean. Ingredients:
Malt-2 cups, Sugar-5 cups, Yeast-1 tablespoon, Water-13.5 litres. For a darker colour add more malt. For stronger flavour add more sugar and a small amount of brewer’s hops. The best flavour, at least to the author, is to use 3 cups of superfine sugar and 3 cups of brown sugar. This gives about 18% by volume – 36% proof. Heat about 2 litres of water and dissolve the malt syrup. Add the sugar to the mix slowly and stir until dissolved. Let the mix boil for several minutes then pour into crock and add the balance of water. If you use hops wrap them in cheesecloth and hang it in the mix. Wait about three hours and skim off foam. Place the hydrometer in the mix and from this point on keep your eye on it. It will sink in about three days or so and you are ready to bottle.

The best way to bottle is a small siphon hose. Try not to disturb the mix. Slowly place the hose about one inch from the bottom and start the siphon action. As each bottle is filled about one inch from the top, pinch the hose to stop the flow and then release and fill the other bottles and let them age – at least 10 days, but 30 days are better.

The very best flavour comes after about 3 months. If you are smart – start another batch immediately as you will want to start drinking the first one almost immediately. And remember – don’t blame me if you drink too much!

ROOT BEER AND SPRUCE BEER.

ROOT BEER
4.5 l water
125 ml molasses
1 teaspoon dry yeast
15 g each of hops, dried burdock, yellow dock,
sarsaparilla, dandelion, sassafras and spikenard roots

Wash the herbs and bruise them thoroughly with a potato masher or pastry blender.
Cover with the water, bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes over low heat. Strain it into a large crock. Add the molasses and cool to lukewarm.

When the mixture is lukewarm, add 1 teaspoon of dry yeast and stir. Cover the crock with a cloth and put it in a warm, draft-free place 26.6 to 30.4 C (70-80 F). After 2 hours, pour into clean bottles to within 12 mm of the tops. Cap with capper and metal caps, but not corks. Place the capped bottles on their sides in a warm and draft-free spot 26.6 to 30.4 C (70-80 degrees F) for 5 days, then set upright in a cool place. The root beer will be ready to drink in 10 days, but will keep for the whole summer.

SPRUCE BEER
22.5 l of water
60 g of hops
1/2 cup of dried, bruised ginger root
500 g of the outer twigs of spruce fir
3 l of molasses
1/2 yeast cake dissolved in 1/2 cup of warm water or 1/2 cup of liquid homemade yeast

In a large kettle combine the water, hops, ginger root and spruce fir twigs. Boil together until all the hops sink to the bottom of the kettle. Strain it into a large crock and stir in the molasses. After this has cooled add the yeast. Cover and leave to set for 48 hours.

Then bottle, cap and leave in a warm place 26.6 to 28.5 C (70-75 degrees F) for 5 days. It will now be ready to drink. Store upright in a cool place.

HOMEMADE KENTUCKY BEER

Use 67.5 litres plastic garbage can with clip on lid. You need:
Approximately 180 g hops
1.35 kg extract of malt
4.05 kg granulated sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
1×1/2 teaspoon granulated yeast.

Place in vessel with approximately 9 litres water, or more if vessel is large enough, and bring to boil. Then turn down to simmer for about 45 minutes, steeping hops into liquid during this period as hops will sit on top of the water; otherwise, flavour will be too weak.

Put malt, raw sugar and molasses into plastic bin. Then strain hops liquid through parachute silk or cheesecloth to remove all sediment and add liquid to contents of bin.

Stir thoroughly with wooden paddle to completely dissolve malt and sugar into liquid. Place the bin in a position where it can be kept for a week undisturbed at 26.6 C (70 F).

Fill up with lukewarm water to within 50 mm of top of container. Temperature of brew must now be about 26.6 to 30.4 C (70 to 80 F). Sprinkle yeast evenly over surface and seal. Beer will work for 7 to 10 days. A thick white broth will appear after the first 8 hours and gradually die, towards the end of the time.

When working has ceased, take 96 clean 780 ml bottles and put one level teaspoon of white sugar into each bottle. Drain off liquid into bottles taking care not to disturb too much. (This will disturb sediment and make liquid cloudy). Cap bottles tightly and correctly and store upright for 3 weeks minimum.

Cool in refrigerator in upright position and pour gently into glass mug for serving. Sediment also forms in bottle if beer is too lively, too much yeast has been added or if bottled before, it had ceased working. The flavour of beer can be softened, by adding 115 g of barley to the hops, when bottling. Colour can be darkened, by increasing the amount of molasses.

Your local health food store is where you can buy your ingredients. Follow directions and be careful. This is very potent.

GRANDMA’S MOONSHINE GRAPE WINE RECIPE

2 x 360 ml cans frozen grape juice
375 g of white granulated sugar
1/3 cake of yeast
A large balloon, some strong string and one 4.5 litres jug.

First, set the grape juice out to thaw, until slushy. Next, mix the sugar thoroughly in with the grape juice. Pour the sugar and juice, into the jug.

Dissolve the yeast in a cup of lukewarm* water and add to the juice mixture in the jug.
(*If water is too warm, it will kill the active ingredient in the yeast that causes fermentation.) Mix everything thoroughly. Now add just enough lukewarm water to fill the jug up to about 50 mm below the neck. When this is done, place the balloon over the top of neck and secure tightly with string. Note! This must be an air tight fit. If you have followed all directions carefully, the balloon will soon start to expand with the gas, caused by the fermentation. Store the mixture in a cool place (but not cold). Around 23.75 degrees C (62.5 F) is ideal, for a period of from 3 to 6 weeks.

Check the balloon every other day. If the balloon expands too large, untie and allow the gas to escape and then retie, but be sure to retie tightly to make it air tight again. When the balloon ceases to expand, the wine is done.

NOTICE – Do not bottle the wine before it is done. Working wine (fermenting) can explode a bottle from the gas pressure of fermentation.

Strain your wine with cheesecloth or a tea towel and pour into a bottle, using a snap-on type of cap or use a cork. Store bottles on their sides in a cool, dark place. All that’s left now to do, is to enjoy it.

ALCOHOL AND SOCIETY TODAY

There has been a lot of discussion in the last few years about the continuing problem of alcohol and the effect it has on society. Should we treat alcohol as if it were an illicit drug?

Some of the promoters of harsh restrictions on the sale and marketing of certain alcoholic beverages (restrictions such as advertising bans and higher taxes) have justified their proposals with the erroneous assertion that alcohol is no different than illegal drugs. There have even been stories in some of the media attempting to equate alcohol with the use and/or abuse of illegal substances such as marijuana, crack, cocaine and heroin.

We will first mention as a matter of information that alcoholic beverages have been a part of western civilization for more than 25 centuries. Now we know that there will always be people among us who drink. America has already tried prohibition and learned conclusively that it does not work. The simple fact is that many Americans like to drink and the vast majority of those who do, drink responsibly, thus, the public policy challenge we face today is not to stigmatise all drinking as bad but to maximize the probability that those who choose to drink will do so in a responsible manner.

It’s a fact that excessive drinking can seriously damage one’s health. Those who claim “alcohol is a drug” want that word to carry a particular, threatening connotation. In reality, however, “drug” is an ethically, legally and physiologically neutral term that encompasses a wide spectrum of substances.

According to a well-known medical textbook of pharmacology, a drug is any chemical agency that affects living processes. A drug can be as menacing as cocaine, as benign as sucrose or as helpful as vitamin C. In a societal sense, some drugs relieve pain and assist in the healing process. Others are safely and legally enjoyed by millions of people very day, even though overuse can result in undesirable side effects. And some drugs are so terribly addictive that simply experimenting with them carries substantial risk.

Recent studies show that excess alcohol consumption can lead to a number of serious health problems, and of course there is the problem of addiction, which must be taken into consideration. Who among us hasn’t been exposed to a friend or relative with a severe drinking problem? Many of societies’ problems today such as spouse abuse, child abuse and dysfunctional family relationships can be traced to drinking problems.

Alcohol may lead to liver problems, a variety of cancers as well as forms of osteoporosis and depression, and studies are showing, too, that women are more susceptible to the ill effects of alcohol than are men. From this information, it is safe to conclude that anything, which has this type of effect on one’s general health, is going to affect the entire system. And research has shown that alcohol depletes the body of the necessary vitamins and minerals.

“Social drinking” seems to be an accepted practice these days and the arguments both pro and con will always be with us. It is our hope that as you read and consider this information you will become more aware of the effect that alcohol has on society today.

The private production of alcoholic beverages can easily become an enjoyable hobby and at the same time enrich your social life.