Colin Asare-Appiah’s New Cocktail Pageant Desires to ‘Join, Collaborate, and Have a good time the Flavors and Tastes of Africa’

Colin Asare-Appiah is not any stranger to the drinks trade. The senior portfolio supervisor for Bacardi rose to the highest of London’s mixology scene within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s after co-founding the venerable London Academy of Bartending (LAB), and he has labored as an award-winning model ambassador for over a decade. Each step of the best way, the Ghana native has put his African heritage entrance and heart. Now, together with U’Luvka Vodka founder Mark Talbot Holmes, Asare-Appiah has created a spirits and cocktail pageant that can put the continent on the worldwide stage. 

Ajabu, which implies “wondrous” or “superb” in Swahili, will happen in Johannesburg, South Africa from March 10–13, then transfer to Cape City from March 13–18. (It would return to each cities in November.) Though the continent has seen festivals crop up over time in international locations like Nigeria and Kenya to rejoice their native cocktail cultures, that is the primary occasion billing itself as worldwide. 

“I get the pleasure of going to all these cocktail festivals around the globe and I see how a lot group there may be, however I additionally see the limitations which can be up in opposition to sure folks being concerned,” says Asare-Appiah. “Folks throughout [Africa] can’t afford to go to Tales [of the Cocktail] or BCB [Bar Convent Brooklyn], for the easy purpose of the price of flying being their month-to-month wage.” 

Ajabu attendees will get pleasure from networking alternatives which can be usually highlights of those international occasions, like instructional seminars, spirit tastings, and model dinners. Native South African venues will host and accomplice with bars from the continent and past, equivalent to Hero in Nairobi, Kenya; Entrance/Again in Accra, Ghana; Milady’s in New York Metropolis; Rayo Cocktail Bar in Mexico Metropolis; Library by the Sea in Grand Cayman; and Trailer Happiness in London. 

We caught up with Asare-Appiah to speak about his love of rituals and group, how Ajabu will honor his late pal Douglas Ankrah, and his drive to maneuver Africa’s cocktail scene ahead.   

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

You’ve spoken about alcohol because it ties to rituals and connection. Are you able to clarify the connection?

One of many the explanation why I fell in love with the [drinks] class was the tales behind the creation of sure spirits and types and the way they got here to be. I’ve at all times appreciated the rituals round ingesting, rising up in Ghana. We’ve got a ceremony referred to as the Akwaaba ritual, which is a welcome ritual: Somebody involves your own home, you sit down, you give them water, you supply them the native spirit, which is perhaps akpeteshie, you possibly supply them some beer and a few meals, and then you definitely carry everybody up to the mark about what has occurred to you for the reason that final time you noticed them. 

I’ve at all times favored these sorts of rituals. There are espresso rituals in Ethiopia, tea ceremonies in Tanzania, and all around the globe. All of these issues prolong to rituals round spirits, just like the pouring of libations to those that have gone earlier than us. Even the cocktail, the Porn Star Martini, created by my finest pal—God bless him, he handed away two years in the past—Douglas Ankrah, was a ritual of the shaker and Champagne. Rituals in cocktail tradition have been round since [the beginning of] time and I respect them significantly. I feel when folks interact in rituals, even rituals of toasting, it brings folks collectively and builds group. It connects us as a result of while you toast, you look one another within the eye—should you don’t, issues might come. It’s superb how easy issues like rituals develop into a part of our on a regular basis existence.

You got here up with the thought for Ajabu through the pandemic while you weren’t connecting with folks. How did that come about?

That’s the loopy factor, although. Throughout the pandemic, bizarrely, was probably the most linked I’ve been with extra folks in a faster area of time. And folks have been extra open as effectively. Abruptly I’m capturing a Zoom assembly to folks I hadn’t spoken to in over 20 years they usually’re choosing up. 

The factor is, I’m very community-first. So, I spent lots of time checking in on my cocktail households around the globe. It was nice connecting with them, discovering out what they’re doing, and the way we might assist and help one another. It was crucial to us as a result of everybody was going by means of totally different phases of how they have been reacting to the pandemic. Then what got here out of that was a seed for fascinated about how we might take the group we constructed on-line and construct an in-person area the place folks on the continent might come to share concepts and join. 

After I was talking with my accomplice Mark [Talbot Holmes] whereas touring round South Africa, I stated we must always do [the festival] right here, and examine what that might appear like. So, Mark and I made a decision to construct a pageant [to get] folks to attach, collaborate, and rejoice the flavors and tastes of Africa. And South Africa is a good place to do it as a result of it’s straightforward for folks to maneuver round in and get flights from a lot of the different international locations.

The thought is that when we set up it and it grows, we’ll do pop-ups of it across the continent so we will take it to all elements. Within the meantime, we’re working with different cocktail festivals just like the Lagos Cocktail Pageant, which is in its tenth yr and run by my pal Lara Rawa. We’re additionally working with the oldsters from Nairobi Bar Present to make sure that they’re represented. As we develop, we’re going to herald all of those different festivals in order that they’re highlighted and elevated as effectively. 

Why did you resolve to host the pageant in two separate cities?

We needed to cowl a few the main metropolises in South Africa. In November, we’re taking a look at partnering with the Cape City Beverage Present, which is run by considered one of our advisors and companions on the bottom, Kurt Schlechter. They’re placing on a conventional cocktail present after which Ajabu is an space whereby we will enable for pop-ups or mash-ups to happen throughout the metropolis by inviting worldwide bartenders and pairing them with native bars to supply a singular cocktail expertise. 

How did you land on the timing of the occasion? Does internet hosting it in March maintain any significance?

It’s a superb window into what’s occurring within the nation at the moment, in that it’s coming to the top of their actually busy season, but it surely’s nonetheless good. Additionally, Europe and the remainder of the world are simply waking up from being caught inside for winter. So, it’s a chance for us to carry worldwide bartenders from America and Europe to South Africa. After we do it in November, the thought is that we’ll carry extra folks from South America and Asia to do pop-ups in South Africa as a result of we need to join and knit all these superb bars and folks from around the globe. 

I keep in mind standing within the room at 50 Finest [Bars] in Singapore final yr and I requested a few of the bartenders that have been in there, the place have you ever been? I feel there was solely considered one of them who stated they’d been to Africa, which is superb as a result of lots of them are so well-traveled. I keep in mind talking with Leah van Deventer, who’s our on-the-ground particular person for Ajabu and is among the preeminent voices in cocktail tradition in Africa, and she or he stated she wasn’t stunned that there was just one individual that I spoke to who’s been to the continent as a result of folks don’t know methods to interact with us. They don’t know the place to go, methods to get there, or what they’re going to do. It’s altering now. However slowly and absolutely, we need to speed up it as a result of now’s the time.

I might see the way it’d be irritating to know the specialness that’s there and for it to take different folks so lengthy to catch up.

Yeah. In 2017, we did a seminar at Tales referred to as “Africa Is the Future.” Quick ahead to final yr, I did a seminar with Leah van Deventer, Richie Barrow from Hero, Kojo Aidoo from Entrance/Again, and Lara Rawa from Lagos Cocktail Week titled “Africa Is Now.” It’s time for us to essentially rejoice what’s occurring within the culinary and cocktail tradition in Africa. You have a look at popular culture now right here within the U.S., all the things’s Afro. America is having Jollof wars—what do People find out about making Jollof? It’s humorous, as a result of actually half of my pal group was in Ghana in December, ringing me and texting me. It simply reveals that now’s actually the time—it’s time to become involved and it’s time to begin exploring the continent as a result of there’s a lot to it. 

Even after I randomly activate the radio, I very a lot key into Afrobeats taking part in and I’m like, when did this occur? What do you suppose made that shift occur?

It’s been occurring for a minute. After I first got here right here 20 years in the past, my spouse Louisa labored with the DJ Wealthy Medina who used to play lots of Afrobeats. I feel it’s been an entire accumulation of issues and folks happening that self-journey, that journey of discovery and increasing their attain. I feel the pandemic additionally performed a job in it, and folks doing their Ancestry DNA assessments to search out out the place their roots are from. It’s that quest for locating who you’re, particularly amongst African-People, that drove everybody to go to Africa in a giant means.

For those who have a look at Ghana as effectively, we had The Yr of Return with a large media push in 2019 proper earlier than the world shut down. The curiosity in Africa is simply beginning—there are such a lot of totally different international locations, so many various cultures. As you cross the borders, the language, the meals, the traditions, and so forth change, however the one factor that threads everybody collectively is group. 

What do you suppose must occur so these voices proceed to not solely be heard inside this area but additionally valued?

There are lots of issues that must occur. Firstly, I feel folks do should be heard, and I feel the platform of Ajabu will give folks the chance to construct relationships with people who find themselves not like them or of them. And as soon as we begin speaking and collaborating, our values will begin being constructed. For lots of people, in the event that they don’t know, they don’t know. In the event that they don’t see, they don’t know. In the event that they’re not in sure areas, they don’t perceive. However bringing folks into our areas by means of Ajabu goes to supply a terrific platform for folks to really feel heard, for folks to have a way of discovery, and for folks’s concepts and voices to really feel valued.

What we’re doing is a collaboration between worldwide bartenders and native bars. They’re not coming in to show folks methods to do something, they’re coming in to share their expertise and choose up shared experiences. They’re referred to as partnerships and mash-ups for a purpose as a result of persons are coming collectively to share concepts after which, hopefully, they’ll take again lots of flavors of the continent with them. 

Are you able to inform me in regards to the cocktails that will probably be served on the pageant?

One of many tenants of the pageant is that there’ll be six cocktails and one spirit-free possibility in order that people who find themselves not ingesting for no matter purpose can really feel a part of the pageant. Additionally, one of many cocktails that’s going to be featured prominently throughout all the accomplice bars is the Porn Star Martini created by Douglas Ankrah. The genesis of the thought for the Porn Star Martini was born in Cape City at a gents’s membership referred to as Mavericks, so I need to ensure that the cocktail is revered in his identify. It’s one of many first cocktails to have South Africa as its muse and it’s a world phenomenon—we’re going to rejoice it. There’s not many Black folks in historical past who created a world phenomenon cocktail that we’re writing about in the present day. I’m positive we’ve up to now, however historical past has a means of being within the arms of these that may write it. 

What feeling would you like pageant goers to stroll away with?

Ajabu. Surprise and amazement, that’s what I would like them to stroll away with. And I do know they may as a result of the intention is to create an atmosphere the place folks can collaborate, rejoice, and create collectively, and out of that can come actually magical, particular issues. We’re trying ahead to everybody coming and experiencing the imaginative and prescient, that isn’t solely ours however truly the buildup of lots of different folks’s visions as effectively. It’s larger than the sum of us; it’s an area and a spot for everyone. We talked about this for a very long time, and it’s nice to have the help from the cocktail group.