I guess I can't really refuse that sort of random adventure - it sounded quite intriguing - and off we went.
Apparently Stephen had been talking to them and on a random tangent he started talking about palm wine and suddenly said, "It's right over there, let's go!"
So we all piled into Stephen's little baby, The Rhino. This was broken when we got here, but has since been fixed and he rides this thing all over Abomosu and the surrounding villages. He looks so stylish in it!
The first thing we saw when we got there was just a bunch of fallen trees that looked like they'd been bulldozed, which we thought they just had because the road has just been recently cleared. But nope... there was purpose in the madness! The yellow containers at the bottom of the trees are actually collecting the palm sap.
So the men cut down the old palm oil trees, cut a hole in them and start to drain them. But every couple days they have to make sure they burn the inside so that the bugs don't get into it.
That's what these men here are doing.
After about 3 weeks of burning and draining, they take the sap and put it into this barrel, where it ferments.
The top layer is the actual Palm Wine - but in order to get something stronger they siphon it off and then put into the green barrel at the back of this picture. This barrel is completely sealed and they heat the inside of it and the fumes go through a little tube and it comes out as liquid into the middle barrell.
It then filters into the last barrel and finally comes out here as the spirits! Or the equivalent of Schnapps.
I thought it was quite a neat process! Although not too pertinent to my life it was fun to get a little more educated. Good times!
Spencer and I in the Rhino getting ready to head home.
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