I watched a documentary last evening about Jack Daniels, the Tennessee Whiskey on National Geographic and how its made and it got me into some line of thought.
Basically, they start with corn (maize) flour, add some malted barley, add some yeast for fermentation and then distil it to get pure ethanol. The ethanol is then filtered using charcoal (from maple tree) to remove impurities and off-flavours and then aged in barrels for about 4yrs to give the whisky its characteristic colour and flavour.
The fermentation process appeared to me to be the same way busaa is made huko ushago except that instead of the malted barley, the women malt sorghum and use naturally occurring occurring yeasts for fermentation. The huge vats with the bubbling fermenting corn mixture at the Jack Daniels factory reminded me of the bubbling drums full of busaa huko ushagoo. In ushago, they stop at this stage and sell the product as busaa. When they want to distil the mixture into pure alcohol (changaa) they connect pipes to the drums and heat the busaa (cooling the vapour with running water) to yield the ethanol. But they do not go further and filter the product or dilute it or age it.
So why am I saying all this? I think that since we already have the brewing technology mashinani, all we need to do is to refine it and put some science and hygiene into the process. The charcoal filtration bit should be added since its straight forward. And since we have a very rich tree biodiversity, we could select the species that imparts the best flavour to the local whisky. And maybe Kenya could put its mark on the world map as far as quality whisky is concerned. So where are our science graduates...the chemists, biochemists, food scientists etc?
Tunaomba serikal iingilie kati itusaidie (through KIRDI) instead of demonising the local entrepreneurs. Will serikal arrest me if i try this at home (in my backyard)?