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.