palm sap is the fluid part of any of several tropical or subtropical trees, shrubs, or vines. Fermented palm-sap beverages can come from any of a number of species of palm, including coconut palm, oil palm, wild date palm, nipa palm, raffia palm, and kithul palm. Harvesting of palm sap varies depending on the species of palm. Some plants must be cut down to harvest the sap; others can be harvested while the palm grows. Still other plants, such as the coconut, have sap in their flower-stems that can be harvested.
The most common palm for spirits making is Cocos nucifera, the coconut palm. The flowers, which grow from the crown in clusters on their own branches, are cut off, and the sap, which runs from the cut, is collected. A healthy tree can produce about a liter of sap a day.
The sap is allowed to ferment using wild yeasts found on the plant itself or in the surrounding air, resulting in a beverage known as palm wine. In most areas that produce palm wine, the drink is consumed quickly after fermentation, to avoid spoilage; it rarely lasts more than forty-eight hours.
In West Africa, palm wine is consumed regularly by over ten million people. In Cameroon, it goes by names such as matango, fitchuk, and mbu. In Burkina Faso, it’s known as bandji. Ghanaians refer to it as doka and nsafufuo, whereas Nigerians call it emu and ogogoro. In Kenya, in East Africa, it’s called mnazi. Fermented palm wine provides a certain amount of nutrition: chemical analysis of the wine shows it contains thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxine, and vitamin B12.
Fermentation alone produces a sweet, mildly effervescent beverage of up to 7 percent alcohol by volume; distilling this fermented product produces a spirit of up to 40 percent alcohol by volume. In Ghana, this distilled product goes by the name akpeteshie; in Benin, it is sodabi (named after the brothers Gbéhalaton and Bonou Kiti Sodabi, World War I veterans who first distilled the spirit on their return from France). Nigerian ogogoro can also be distilled. Throughout West Africa, when palm wine is distilled, it is generally done on a local level, and a great deal of the distillation is unregulated or unregistered. See moonshine.
In Sri Lanka and southern India as well, the palm wine (or, as it’s known, “toddy,” from the Hindi tari, “palm sap”) is then distilled into a liquor, known as arrack, coconut arrack, or, historically, Goa arrack, after the center of the South Indian industry. See arrack, coconut. Indian palm arracks are generally unaged, while some Sri Lankan ones are aged in wooden vats for periods ranging from two to fifteen years, yielding a spirit that is, while relatively light in body, smooth and pleasant.
In the Philippines, a similar beverage, lambanog, is common. Sap is taken from coconut flowers and fermented. The fermented liquid is then distilled and bottled without aging. Traditionally, the beverage was made and consumed at home, like moonshine, though now a few commercial brands are available. Some brands are treated much like soju, in that artificial fruit flavors are common, usually accompanied by garish colors, along with other trendy flavors such as bubble gum. See soju. There are, however, also artisanal producers who make an exceptionally clean and pleasant spirit.
See also akpeteshie; lambanog; and ogogoro.
Azam-Ali, Sue. Technical Brief: Toddy and Palm Wine. Rugby, UK: Practical Action, 2011. https://www.appropedia.org/ToddyandPalmWine(PracticalActionTechnical_Brief (accessed April 30, 2021).
Fourgeau, Catherine, and Johanna Maula. “Producteurs et productrices d’alcool de palme (Sodabi) dans le sud-est du Bénin.” Cahiers d’outre-mer, April-June 1998, 201–214.
Miller, Anistatia, and Brown, Jared. “Arrack? What the F@! Is Arrack?” *Imbibe Magazine. http://imbibe.com/news-articles/spirits-cocktails/features-arrack-what-f-is-arrack7810/ (accessed July 1, 2016).
By: Michael Dietsch