The Good Samaritan
By Awesome Seth
Nigeria
#ketelonecontestNigeria
Beyond tasting great, a good cocktail should teach you something about a culture or a people. Local ingredients are one way to bind the memory of a good drink to a place. Nigeria has an abundance of delicious indigenous ingredients, but they have been slow to make their way into local bar menus.
One such ingredient especially close to my heart is Palm Wine. This delicious liquid sustains 20,000 smallholder farmers across Nigeria. Farmers like Papa who I got to meet have been tapping palm wine for a long time.
Nigeria's cocktail scene is still young and so the responsibility to challenge consumer taste buds falls on bartenders. As is expected of a young cocktail scene, there is a limited number of bartenders that have the know-how or palate to responsibly engineer these ingredients into great-tasting cocktails.
I intend to create a non-profit equivalent of Difford's Guide for Nigeria aimed at showcasing cocktails submitted by local bartenders using local ingredients. Using the power of technology, we can disseminate these recipes further and faster and build a movement around homegrown.
The impact to Papa is clear, rising demand for local ingredients will guarantee sustained income and change the fortunes of some nearly extinct wild fruits while simultaneously delighting guests' taste buds.
The Good Samaritan will democratize access to recipes that will educate the next generation of bartenders and also democratize access to recipes that do our terroir justice. Perhaps one day a cocktail conceived in Nigeria will end up on the menu of The American Bar.
The Good Samaritan Cocktail
Glass: Highball
Garnish: Grated alligator pepper
Method: Shake all ingredient except the palmwine. Pour into highball glass with ice. top with palmwine.
Ingredients:
40ml Ketel One Family Made Vodka
20ml Fresh lime juice
12.5ml Alligator pepper & ginger cordial
15ml Honey hibiscus syrup
Top with Palmwine