Stephen Gray
LIFESTYLE
Once, for my sins, a man whose name really was Paul von Blixem approached me. He ran a mampoer distillery and his mission was to widen the appeal of his product, an important patriotic beverage, to English- speakers, not just to lying, lazy louts in the backveld. And to tourists, that was the real point. As well as explain why we call grog-shops “bottle stores”.
I gave him the Herman Charles Bosman reference to the story of Willem Prinsloo, in every school anthology. So unsure was Bosman that his khaki, red- throated and overseas readers would grasp what the word mampoer meant, that he called it “peach brandy”. But the one thing mampoer is not is that; brandy is old soggy Cape, and we’re talking gritty Transvaal. Nowadays, there is even a Willem Prinsloo Agricultural Museum which distills genuine peach mam- poer in a traditional 19th-century pot-still, up to 50 degrees proof.
Von Blixem could easily beat that. Soon he was in my kitchen, demonstrating the difference between his line of Fkl – the collector’s piece passion fruit distillate, resembling pink meths, that goes up to 70 degrees proof in alcohol (iets met ‘n piets) – and his next legal product, Fkp, or was it Blue Mamba, which reaches a gut- stitching 85. From there, for me, it was downhill all the way.
But before we go further into the dusty folk pharmacopoeia, take this lesson in mampoer-tasting. First remove spectacles, dentures and accessories. Stand squarely. Snort the vapour to clear mucus. Don’t heave: swill, to decoat lingual organ. Allow the fruit to expand in your throat. With dedication and practice you may even store a shot in your sinus to keep dripping. By magic you too may be transformed into a cackling hunchback.
Practice means taking to the dirt trails of especially the North-West province, to wherever there is a cultural organisation. Yes, mampoer was dying out a decade ago, just as those Voortrekkers trekking away from the wine routes with their copper stills had almost been forgotten. Genial Mampuru proved to them their effort was worthwhile. He showed them how to pulp maroelas, and light just the right fire under the fermenting mass. Mampuru was the Pedi Sekhukhune’s brother, the kingdom’s barman. After a late-night sniffing session, Mampuru eventually stabbed Sekhukhune.
On one of President Kruger’s farms, now the Rustenburg Nature Reserve, I was to learn that on their mountainous walk every 23rd indigenous tree produces the raw matter for old-time mampoer. Get to the Tapiphyllum parvifolium or gardenia- like medlar, and the Bequaertiodendron magilismontanum or leathery milkplum, before the baboons do. But nowadays, fruit of the bushveld is outlawed as an alcoholic source, or there would be none left.
At M&M distillery of Groot Marico, where young Tinus gives me the confidential tour, plastic vats contain a seething mush of the harvest of the season: peeled guava visibly rendering itself into a moonshine elixir. By the way, you do not prime the still, you stoke it. See the product in the tasting arena, like containers in old chemist’s windows. Focus on the Marico sunbird on the label, under the Klipdrift cap. You have not experienced the ethereal earth until Tinus has let you sample just a sniff of his Guava Dilla Liqueur.
At the other end of the spectrum, of course, is Marico Donkieskop, which is flavoured with no less than somebody’s figleaf floating in each half-jack. To recover, try Tant Santa and Oom Egbert’s honey mam- poer, and quickly say: typical triple Transvaal tipple.
Madotta out north at Alma make a Tutti- Fruity Liqueur, which is even more sweat of the soil. Easy to spot: the label features a body-builder posing amid thornbushes.
Loopspruit at Bronkhorstspruit delivers in the Victorian pottery jars, while Suikerbosrand issues actual maroela mampoer that comes with barbed-wire wound around the bottle, to forestall explosion from clumsy handling. They also do a Pineapple Poll of 50 degrees proof with, as in the antique soda-water bottles, the glass marble of the valve choking to burst out.
Licences to reduce your local orchard into such phlegm solvents and snakebite cures are no longer hereditary. If you are a cultural institution, you will get one, and be monitored by the Customs and Excise inspectors. They certainly know their pickled kumquats from their one- stop quick dop.
For the recent Ladysmith Freedom Festival, the Siege Museum sold out on Waainek’s rusty-flavoured fig mampoer. The Arend Dieperink Museum in Potgietersrus keeps afloat on recycling rooibos teabags into a bewitching snifter. Also cures rheumatism.
At the Klerksdorp Museum, I discovered that old prison building befogged in a champion kind of yellow nasal shampoo. Uncle Jacobsopie was at it again, steaming up a truckload of those Lebombo bananas, to render them as a disarmingly piquant potion called Soetblitz.
Soetblitz is real Renaissance juice. All you do is roll down your driver’s window and blow. Soetblitz makes even traffic cops volatilise, right before your eyes.