Confronting the Colonial Spirit

While filming a documentary on rice farmers from central Nigeria, Tunde Wey encountered ògógóró, the sweet, strong distillate of palm sap that is indigenous to West Africa. It was only his first day of filming, and he was in Ibaji, a district in central Nigeria that was experiencing intermittent floods. The community had offered the spirit to him as a tribute. After salutations, a caffeine-rich kola nut was ceremoniously broken and inspected before the ògógóró was poured into red Solo cups. He had it a second time the next day, this time enjoyed as a tonic, tinged yellow and pooled around roots and herbs, courtesy of the community leader. “It was sweet and so smooth,” Wey recalls, “and we just kept on drinking and drinking, and he refused to tell us what was inside.” Buzzing off the booze, Wey, a writer, chef and artist, nursed plans to carry the spirit to the United States. But his hopes would be doused, first by the Nigerian port authorities, and again by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Ògógóró was banned for sale and production in Nigeria by British colonists in 1910, and it remained prohibited until Nigeria gained independence in 1960. To quell the competition it presented to imported gin, the British branded ògógóró as an inferior knockoff of the spirit. Today, it’s mostly made in rural districts as a moonshine, making it nearly impossible to import, though recently distillers have been working to scale up ògógóró’s production and refine its quality.

After his first taste in Ibaji, Wey remained attached to the spirit’s sweet, floral notes and strong, spicy finish. He sourced several liters from Bayelsa, the same state where the district secured its own steady supply, bringing it to his home in Lagos where he shared the spirit with his brother. They had never tasted anything like it, and they knew that neither had drinkers in the States. Wey wanted to change that.

For him, ògógóró’s prohibition and its resulting suppression are emblematic of the extractive nature of dealings with Africa that continue to drive global trade. It’s why he set out to bring the spirit to the U.S., setting the product’s price—$127 a bottle, or the sum of Nigeria’s external debt divided by the total number of U.S citizens—as a statement about America’s lopsided global trade relations. As Tunde tells it, in visually arresting prose across several chapters announcing the concept, America has debts to pay, and he has been led, by a West African spirit, to present a case for liquidation by way of inebriation. 

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