So taste the gin at intervals, and once you’re happy with the flavour, filter out all the botanicals using a sieve. If there’s some sediment left in the liquid, use some muslin or a coffee filter to strain it again. How to store: If your bottles or jars are well sealed, strained correctly and kept in a cool, dark place, your spirits can keep for up to a year. Add toasted and/or charred oak chips to your homemade banana brandy and shake the bottle every couple of days. After a few weeks, it will have a nice coloring and you can dilute it water to your desired alcohol percentage. See more on that below. At a temperature of around 75°F (24°C), you can pitch the yeast and stir it into the mash thoroughly. We recommend using 5g of Red Star Champagne yeast. Since the mash will have a high sugar content, the alcohol percentage of the finished banana brandy wash will be quite high. While normal bread yeast would also start the fermentation process, it would stop converting sugar into alcohol somewhere between 5-7% ABV. Champagne yeast remains active up to around 17% ABV.

The death toll of 80 was arrived at after 15 people died in the period between April 23 and the weekend before. [11] Deaths in Kamwenge went from five to nine after four people died on 21 April. [11] Two people were hospitalised at Kamwenge's Ntara Health CentreIV and five were hospitalised at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. [11]The extra banana flavor punch: Peel a banana and cut into thin slices. Add it to the distillate for around 5 days. This adds a delicious banana aroma and is our favorite banana moonshine flavoring. According to Bananaman, after Brazil, Uganda is the highest banana-producing nation in the world! Bananas here are mostly eaten green. Yes, you read that right. It is referred to as Matoke (mah-toke-ay), and when you cut it up and fry it, it tastes exactly like french fries, but without the heaviness in the stomach that potatoes give you. They also boil them and mash them just like mashed potatoes, plus they cook them on a grill for yet another different flavor.

Moonshining and consumption of waragi and other alcoholic beverages is widespread in Uganda. In the 2004 WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol, Uganda ranked as the world's leading consumer of alcohol (per capita). [1] Based on results from 2007, Uganda’s overall alcohol consumption was an average of 17.6 liters per capita. [ clarification needed] This is unusually high compared to surrounding countries. [2] In 2016 this seems no longer the case, with total consumption of pure alcohol down to 9.5 litres per capita (≥ 15 years of age). [3] History [ edit ] With: Gold rum, crème de banane liqueur, oloroso sherry, falernum, white crème de cacao, orang bitters, cardamom bitters, and chocolate bitters. VICE, a news outlet known for " immersion journalism" devoted an episode of their web series Fringes to the process of making and distributing Waragi. The episode also covered the cultural significance of Waragi in Uganda, with reporter Thomas Morton imbibing various distillations of the traditional beverage. [12] People in Uganda now drink the harsh gin and authorities overall ignore the law and do not enforce it regularly. It is sold in shops and bars across Uganda and a distilled version is sold overseas. The product that is sold overseas is double and sometimes triple distilled from the alcohol that village distillers make for the factories in Uganda. When it is distilled, flavors are added and many impurities and dangerous parts of the alcohol are filtered out. [4] Incidents [ edit ]

There’s certainly no shortage of flavoured gins in the supermarkets these days – everything from violets and geraniums to blood oranges and grapefruits make their way into the staunchly British spirit. But while these are at best overly sweet and at worst full of artificial flavourings, it’s far tastier and cheaper to make your own. And best of all – all it requires is a bit of sugar, some gin, your chosen fruit and time for everything to infuse together. With: Jamaican aged blended rum, gold rum, crème de banane liqueur, crème de mûre liqueur, pineapple juice, lime juice, and grenadine syrup. That’s not completely untrue - there is a type of gin called “compound gin” that you can make in your kitchen with a bottle of vodka and whatever botanicals you feel like adding. But for an even easier “cheat’s” take on flavoured gin, try one of our ‘ginfusions’ below. Our distillers have captured all that’s delicious about banana bread and bottled it to create this triple banana, sweet gin.

Just remember that strong flavours like citrus peel, chilli and fresh or dried herbs tend to be quite powerful in small amounts! You can also follow this banana brandy recipe without adding these added enzymes. This will mean that your banana moonshine brandy mash will have a lower alcohol percentage. Hence, you would be wasting parts of the bananas. Alpha-amylase is available in most brew shops and online and doesn’t cost much. A green banana consists of mostly starches and has a very low sugar content. Only as the fruit continues to ripen, enzymes in the banana skin help to convert starches into sugar. A ripe banana has a very high sugar content of over 20% – sometimes even up to 30%. That is more than in apples, pineapples and most other fruits. Since removing the banana skins means removing the source of enzymes that converts starch into sugar that can be converted into alcohol, adding glucoamylase enzymes to your waragi mash helps break down remaining starch into sugar. As mentioned above, with up to 30% sugar content, bananas have more sugar than apples or grapes. Therefore, there is no need to add sugar to your mash. Adding sugar to the wash will make the banana moonshine less smooth and add a rum flavor. But, if you are aiming for quantity, adding sugar to this banana mash moonshine recipe is absolutely possible. For every 2.5lbs (1.25kg) of sugar you add to the mash, add an additional 1.5 gallons of water. Stir the sugar into the mash at 160°F (71°C).With: Banana, cachaça, gold rum, crème de banane liqueur, corn liqueur, fino sherry, lime juice, and saline solution. Let the banana mash cool down naturally to about 75°F (24°C) while keeping the lid on your fermenter to avoid contamination. Depending on the size of your fermentation vessel, this takes about 1-1.5 hours. If the temperature is still too high after about one hour, you can add a couple of clean ice cubes to the mash to speed up the process or cool the container from the outside, e.g. by placing it into a bathtub with cold water. Since the enzymes need the high temperatures to convert starch into sugar, make sure to wait for about an hour before actively cooling down the mash. There should be around 1.5 ounces of foreshots from this recipe. This part contains the toxic methanol and acetone. To be on the safe side, discard around 2 or 2.5 ounces (60-80ml). Then, collect the distillate in different containers, called cuts, of each around 50-100ml and number them. Once the proof of the distillate drops below 60, you can turn off your still. Cover the containers with your banana brandy and let them sit for a day to allow the aromas to settle. In April 2010, 80 people died from multiple organ dysfunction syndrome after drinking waragi adulterated with a high amount of methanol over a three-week period in Kabale District. [8] [9] [10] Many of the deaths were blamed on the reluctance of people to openly admit their relatives had been drinking it, allowing the abuse of the substance to continue. [9] [10] When revelations came about houses were searched, with around 120 jerrycans uncovered. [10] During the fermentation process, a cap of foam and solids will form at the top. You can push it down every now and then to prevent it from drying out.