What to Drink in Uganda
Light and heavy lager beers are on sale in many joints. Bell Beer which has been brewed at Luzira for over 50 years is the more popular light beer. Heavy lagers such as Nile Special and Club are brewed at the source of the Nile. In fact one brewer has now started making industrial beer using locally grown sorghum instead of the imported hops and malt. Whatever your brand and taste, you will enjoy your beer in Uganda. Many visitors comment on its pleasant aftertaste.
Uganda gained an international reputation in the 1960s for distilling a national gin called Uganda Waragi. The drink became so popular that stocks run out at various international trade exhibitions to the embarrassment of organisers. For a while the distillery went through a rough patch when quality suffered and sales went down as the economy tottered on the brink of collapse. The gin has made a good comeback following the purchase of the distillery by a beer consortium.
The name waragi was coined by Sudanese soldiers from the Turkish word arrak’h.. Towards the end of the 20th century, when British explorers were beginning to make inroads into East Africa, they used brigades Nubian soldiers in their entourage, a hardy type who concocted the drink from grains to keep up their spirits. Waragi eventually became a well known distilled drink in Uganda but the colonial authorities banned it through laws which still exist in the books. Africans would not drink it openly then since even the more harmless drinks were off limits for them. People now drink the crude thing, and the authorities are ignoring the law and not enforcing it. The distilled Uganda Waragi now being sold in shops, bars and overseas is safe enough because it is double and triple distilled from the crude alcohol which village distillers sell to the factory, where flavours are added and the harmful parts of alcohol and impurities are filtered out. Many people take it neat. Others with a tonic or fruit cocktail. Uganda Waragi a smooth gin worth the name.