WESTERN CAPE NEWS - In its long and notorious list of dubious achievements, South Africa can now also add the fact that, apart from Greenland (if it is even a real place), it is the only country on earth that has imposed an alcohol ban on its citizens in a time when they, in most probability, need more drinks than ever. Thailand and Mexico have also made half-hearted attempts by banning booze in selected provinces but in Mexico’s state of Neuvo Leon (ironically where Corona beer is produced), governor Jaime Rodriguez Calderon had to rapidly withdraw his decision to suspend all production and distribution of beer after widespread protests and panic buying. Herewith some of the results of this challenging decision by the SA government. – Ed
We are South Africans after all and that means quite simply " 'n boer maak 'n plan", Afrikaans for "a farmer makes a plan".
Faced with the continuing lockdown in this country, never has this adage been truer, as droves of people turn to ingenious ways of thwarting the ban on alcohol, in keeping with the Western Cape leading the pack when it comes to bottle store burglary.
Now before this journalist gets into the dwang, I want to make my stance perfectly clear lest the long arm of the law tries to find me.
I first became aware of the peculiar phenomenon of no yeast on the shelves even at the biggest grocers in our little "dorp" called Knysna. But this was during the course of my hunt for the raising agent in order to join the fashion of home-baking which most Tom, Dick and Harry have taken to.
It was during my solitary outing with my requisite shopping list that I noticed the very odd behaviour of people who don't fit the fruitarian profile carrying boxes and obscene amounts of pineapples out of local stores.
And then of course – only because I am a journalist with big ears – did I just happen to accidentally eavesdrop on covert conversations of how much yeast, or number of raisins failing yeast stocks, are needed to turn a pineapple smoothy into an intoxicating concoction.
It was thus also no surprise to see in the last week there has been a surge in alcohol-related Google searches.
And a flood of interest in all sorts of moonshine groups, the URLs of which I can obviously not publish here lest I am perceived to be facilitating the manufacture of booze.
No surprise really to find then that according to Google, South African queries on the search engine for "alcohol ban South Africa" spiked 500% over the past week as the national lockdown entered its third week.
This Google alcohol-related activity is well ahead of most other countries.
Google itself was quoted saying, "High levels of search interest were also seen for the terms 'how to get alcohol' and 'homemade alcohol'.
"Related search queries for the term 'homemade alcohol' include 'homemade beer recipes South Africa', 'can homemade pineapple beer make you drunk', 'homemade gin', homemade alcoholic pineapple beer' and 'how to make alcohol at home fast'."
An IOL article quoted the top five trending searches on Google as:
- "How to make alcohol at home".
- "How to make beer easy".
- "How to make pineapple beer", followed by "Does pineapple beer make you drunk".
- "A homemade Hunters Dry recipe".
- And the most desperate search fifth in the line was "How to extract alcohol from hand sanitiser".
Since the advent of DIY home-brew I have been enlightened by some of the ingenious alchemists.
These people are of course protected by the fact that as a journalist I never have to reveal my sources.
Brewers I have spoken to from as far as KwaZulu-Natal to more locally, are at different stages of the process.
What I have managed to ascertain so far is that pineapples seem to be first choice, but I even know of someone using prickly pears. Raisins seem to perform a similar fermentation process in the absence of yeast.
A potable brew takes about a week. And depending on what container the brew is made in, it can explode.
It's not clear if this is legal or a caveat in Cele's ruling, so best stay off the radar when it comes to your own business at home.
'We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news'
