Another cocktail festival, but a different continent: Africa
The increasing interest in cocktails and spirits over the past quarter century has led to an explosion of conferences and festivals around the world where drinks are poured and discussed in depth. However, Africa has been largely absent from this global party.
That situation will change next year with the arrival of Ajabu, in South Africa. The event is billed as the continent’s first international spirits and cocktail festival, held biennially. The event will take place from March 10 to 13 in Johannesburg and then from March 13 to 18 in Cape Town. It will be followed by another weeklong event in both cities in the fall. 2024. (Ajabu means ‘something wonderful’ in Swahili.)
The event is the brainchild of Mark Talbot Holmes, the founder of U’Luvka Vodka, and Colin Asare-Appiah, a native of Ghana who quickly rose through the London mixology ranks in the 1990s and early 2000s and became a senior portfolio ambassador for Bacardi became. Mr. Asare-Appiah was once a bartender at LAB, a London bar that was one of the most influential early craft cocktail houses and had a location in Cape Town.
“I have always been Africa-focused,” he said. “I wanted the groups of people I have worked with over the years to come together and celebrate the uniqueness of Africa.”
Mr. Asare-Appiah got the idea for the festival while sheltering in place in Brooklyn during the pandemic, a period that gave him time to reflect on his African roots. “When I was at a standstill during the pandemic, I connected more with the continent,” he said. “I realized there were so many things happening on the continent, but it was fragmented.”
Ajabu will try to put those fragments together, flying in bartenders from bars in several African countries – including Hero in Nairobi, Kenya, and Front/rear in Accra, Ghana – to share ideas and show theirs to the world.
“South Africa is definitely the leader in the African drinks industry,” he said Leah van Deventer, a drinks writer, lecturer and consultant in Cape Town. “But there are emerging hotspots in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, and, to a lesser extent, in Senegal, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Mr Asare-Appiah and Ms Van Deventer – who will work at Ajabu as on-site problem solvers – presented a panel entitled “Africa is Now!” at the Stories about the cocktail conference in New Orleans in July.
The Ajabu Festival will also include visits from prominent bars outside Africa including Milady’s in New York City, Rayo cocktail bar in Mexico City and Trailer Happiness in London. Instead of the usual pop-ups that traveling bars often organize at conferences, the visiting bars will team up with local African bars for what Mr Asare-Appiah calls “mash-ups”.
He plans to bring together many of the bartending alumni of LAB, which started as a school, the London Academy of Bartending. There will also be a tribute to it Douglas Ankrahone of LAB’s bartending stars and the inventor of the internationally popular drink called the Pornstar Martini (a combination of vanilla-flavored vodka, passion fruit liqueur and puree, and sometimes lime juice, with a hint of bubbles). Mr Ankrah, who was born in Ghana and died in 2021, came up with the idea for the cocktail while working in Cape Town.
In the world of craft cocktails, “Africa is in many ways the last frontier,” Ms. Van Deventer said. “Not only is it geographically off the beaten track, but it is also vastly different culturally. I guess people weren’t sure how to get involved, which is why a festival like Ajabu is so exciting.”
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