My Sierra Leone friends have always talked up palm wine to me. It is a common alcoholic drink in Africa made from the fermented sap of palm trees. However, they always say to stay away from the stuff in the cities. The city stuff has to be transported from the rural areas, and then is usually watered down. I've been told that I want the fresh stuff in the countryside. Well, on Sunday, since I found myself in a rural part of Sierra Leone, Idriss my driver and I went looking for palm wine. The market places in the countryside have all kinds of agricultural products for sale, but apparently palm wine is not something that is sold openly. I got the impression it is like beer in a dry county. You have to ask around. So Idriss stopped men on the road and started asking where palm wine could be purchased. After a couple of shrugs, we got someone to point down a path off the main road. We drove about five minutes with no one in sight until we came to a village square. Idriss asked a man and a kid overheard the question. The kid said he could take us there. We let him hop into the back seat and off we went into the jungle. Has anyone seen The Wire? This is how you buy heroin in Baltimore.
We pulled up to a shack and the kid got out. Idriss did the talking to an elderly man there. The guy looked me over and agreed to sell. He needed a container to put it in, though. I had a 2 liter water bottle about half full. I took a big swig and gave it to the guy. He put the bottle to his lips and drank the rest. A few minutes later, he came back with two liters of palm wine in my water bottle. Now Idriss had to bargain for the price. I had given Idriss three dollars to work with. Idriss got it for a quarter. Two liters of wine for a quarter. That should tell you the quality of the stuff.
After drinking about half a liter, I poured it down the toilet. It was mildly fermented, so hardly qualified as alcoholic. It also tasted like carbonated morning breath.
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