Seven Of SA’s Craft Drink Brands

South Africa has had a love affair with distillation since 1672 when a cook recorded distilling wine into brandy aboard De Pijl, a Dutch ship anchored in Tafelbaai. The settlers had recently started producing wine in the Cape, and it was necessary to preserve the liquid for maritime travel.

The liquor, rough as it was, was a hit on land too, and it wasn’t long before inventive individuals started tinkering in rudimentary stills to supply the taverns.

When gold and diamonds were discovered upcountry, the influx of fortune seekers brought the demand for hard tack. In 1881, Alois Hugo Nellmapius, a Polish entrepreneur, saw the gap for spirits made from crops other than grapes and fruit and managed to wangle the sole right to distil alcohol from grains, potatoes and other produce in the then Transvaal. To improve quality, he advertised in the European press and managed to entice René Santhagens, an adventurous Cognac distiller, to make the arduous journey to the republic, bringing his copper stills with him.

After the Second Boer War in 1899, modern distillation spread throughout the land, making our spirits more palatable. While we now have huge commercial success with producers like Distell, the intrepid spirit of micro distillation continues with plucky craft distillers.

Here are seven of our favourites.

Bushveld Whisky

Bushveld Whisky, from New Harbour Distillery located at the African Spirits Lab in Woodstock, Cape Town, is designed to transport you to the bush at first sip. Nic and Andri Janeke – the couple behind the brand, who have already received significant acclaim for their gins – achieve this with a unique finishing process. After the single-grain spirit has matured in ex-Bourbon American oak casks for the required three years, it spends time in custom-made, charred kameeldoring (or camel thorn) casks. The result is a heavily spiced, honeyed whisky with distinct smoky kameeldoring notes, which any South African will recognise as reminiscent of a bushveld fire. To maintain its rich texture and intense flavour, Bushveld Whisky is bottled without chill filtration.

Not your average rum with spice

As implied by its name, this is not your garden-variety rum, but rather the result of a meeting of especially inventive minds. The creators are rum aficionados Andy Kiloh and Peter Good of the Authentic Alcohol Company who took their idea of rum with a difference to Craft Link Distillery in Ferreirasdorp, Johannesburg. The divergence in question is that spiced rum is traditionally infused with botanicals like vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom, or focused on a single fruit such as pineapple or granadilla. Not Your Average Rum With Spice, however, is enlivened with honeybush, cassia and almonds – the latter tincture being redistilled to be allergy-friendly. The molasses base and time in wood, along with these interesting flavourants, magically merge into a liquid with notes of banana bread, marzipan and Christmas cake, and a kiss of liquorice on the finish.

Kimushki The Brave Gin

Not only is the packaging of Kimushki especially eye-catching, but its contents are too. Where most local gins are made from cane spirit, this is made from a neutral grape spirit. Then the infusions happen in stages with various methods. Juniper and some other botanicals are vapour infused, meaning that they only have contact with the spirit’s vapour – a delicate way of extracting flavour. Kimushki’s signature passion fruit is extracted separately via steeping before that liquid is vacuum distilled with more juniper, a method of distillation where a still is put under pressure, allowing the liquid to vaporise at a lower, gentler temperature. Lastly, the two gins are combined and aged in first-fill French oak Chardonnay barrels – another unusual step for gin, which is generally unaged. This innovative production method results in a creamy and mellow gin, elegantly flavoured with juniper floral spice, zesty citrus, sweet vanilla and light, buttery oak. The brand is owned by Kim Zanasi and produced by Nic and Andri Janeke at African Spirits Lab.

Bobbejaan Herbal Liqueur

Local is lekker with this fun new liqueur, embodied by Famous Bob, who adorns the bottle. Conceptualised by Mike Toua and Eugene Vos, Bobbejaan is made at the Bundu Brands facilities in Villiersdorp. Here, a secret medley of 61 dried flowers, roots, herbs, fruits and spices are added to cane spirit; once their essence has been absorbed, the liquid is filtered, sweetened with natural sugars and diluted to 30% ABV. Multiple flavours are present, the dominant peach or stone fruit being supported by spearmint, liquorice, dark caramel, candied fruit, vanilla and orange skin. With a good balance of sweet, bitter and herbal notes, it’s accessible to an array of palates, and decidedly nicer tasting than similar herbal liqueurs. Designed as a digestive, Bobbejaan can be shot at room temperature or icy cold, or mixed into cocktails.

Blomendahl Vodka

The Blomendahl family has been working in agriculture in Europe since 1185, and the current patriarch, FJ, has nearly 40 years of winemaking and distillation under his belt. This wealth of generational experience is evident in Blomendahl Vodka, which FJ makes along with his son Benedikt on their farm in Elgin, in the Western Cape. Like Kimushki, it’s grape-based, but again, this is not the norm for vodka. Even more unusually, the grape base is actual barrel-aged wine, some of which is more than seven years old. After distilling the wine into vodka in their custom-built copper potstill, the liquid is aged again in steel tanks for some eight years. When the time has finally come for bottling, the spirit is blended with mountain spring water. After such patience and care, it’s not surprising that Blomendahl Vodka is sublime and can easily be enjoyed just over ice.

Esperanza Agave Spirit

Lucy Beard and Leigh Lisk of Hope Distillery in Salt River, Cape Town, have long been market leaders in the craft spirits space, most famously for Hope Gins. Esperanza, “hope” in Spanish, is their answer to the time-honoured spirits of Mexico, the two most famous being Tequila and Mescal. Because those products are protected by geographical indication, here we use the generic term agave spirit, agave being the succulent from which the spirit is made. For Esperanza, Hope imports the plant in dehydrated form, before rehydrating it, fermenting it and distilling the liquid in Mad Mary, their copper hybrid still. After 30 days of rest in a stainless steel tank, where the flavours settle, Esperanza is bottled. It has floral butterscotch on the nose, slightly spiced caramel on the palate, and a warm, soft vanilla finish.

Caperitif Kaapse Dief Vermouth

Originally produced by Castle Wine and Spirits Company in the early 1900s, Caperitif found its way into the booming cocktail scene of 1920s London. Production stopped around 1940, and the recipe was all but lost until reinvented by local winemaker Adi Badenhorst and Danish cocktail enthusiast Lars Erik Lyndgaard Schmidt. A vermouth, Caperitif is made from Chenin Blanc wine on Adi’s Kalmoesfontein Farm in the Western Cape. It’s fortified with spirit, sweetened with grape sugar and bittered with cinchona bark. Following this, it’s infused with 34 other Cape botanicals, including kalmoes, fynbos and naartjie. The ensuing flavours are piney, grapey and citrusy, with soft spice. It can be sipped on the rocks, lengthened with soda or tonic, or mixed into any number of vermouth cocktails, such as Martinis.