WRITING

Hero, an eatery and bar that overlooks Nairobi’s spectacular skyline, has been garnering global attention since its opening in 2019, and currently places 68 in the coveted World’s 50 Best Bars long list. We chatted to Richie Barrow and Kelvin Thairu, F&B and bars...

For International Gin & Tonic Day on 19 October, let’s talk about the G&T. Where was it conceived, and how did it become so popular?

Despite its many pop-culture appearances alongside Vikings and Celts, mead actually hails from Africa. Here’s how.

24 September is Heritage Day! What better way to celebrate than with a local-and-lekker South African drink … but do you know your amasi from your witblits? Mampoer Although made famous by the boers, this South African tipple has its roots with the Pedi people. As the...

If we agree with Mark Twain’s musings in this autobiography, there’s no such thing as a new idea, we simply tweak existing concepts. Recently, a trio of professors studying innovation took this notion a step further in a research paper positing that...

In 2000, Brad O’Neill, an unassuming sugarcane farmer’s son from the KZN Midlands, packed his kit and headed to the Cape, intent on tackling sports science at Stellenbosch. And tackle it he did, but – like so many Maties before him – Brad found himself more and more...

For World Baijiu Day, celebrated annually on 9 August, we take a look at this equal-parts prevalent and obscure liquid.

It’s a tale as old as time. An enticing creature of the sea seduces men with lyrical promises of rapture, knowledge or power, usually leading them to catastrophe. Except while the siren of the Karoo may have the tint of the Atlantic, she’s not a watery being. Quite...

If you’re feeling a little ginned out, you’re not alone. Sure, South Africa’s affair with mother’s ruin may not be over, but spiritual seers are already casting their gaze to the future … and that future may be all about agave. So what’s agave, and what does it have...