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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from Nigeria

Ogogoro / akpeteshie (West African distilled palm wine)ogogoro (Nigeria)

Palm sap from raffia or oil palms is left to ferment into palm wine for about a week in sealed drums, then boiled in metal drums over a wood fire. The vapour runs through pipes cooled in a water tank and drips out as a clear, strong spirit, ogogoro in Nigeria and akpeteshie in Ghana. Made in 4 steps over 7 days. The longest step, ferment into palm wine in sealed drums, takes 7 days (The Centenary Project). Yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe) of palm wine and toddy and Lactic acid bacteria (Leuconostoc, Pediococcus) of palm wine and toddy do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step7 daysReported[pau-ogogoro]Ferment into palm wine in sealed drums
AciditypH 7–7.4 → 5Reported[oluwole2023]Ferment into palm wine in sealed drums

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedInformal production with no fixed batch size in the sources used.
Palm wine · Raffia or oil palm sap fermented for about a week[pau-ogogoro][fermdb]
Starter: spontaneous (the palm wine's own yeasts and bacteria)

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Sap runs from a cut in the palm down a bamboo pipe into a can

Step 1 of 4
Tap the palm
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts

Output: palm sap.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Ogogoro is palm wine distilled. Palm wine reaches only about 5 % alcohol; distilling it gives a spirit several times stronger.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Akpeteshie (Ghana)Distilled from palm wine, raffia palm wine or sugarcane.
  • Sodabi (Benin)The Beninese name for distilled palm wine.

Safety

Ogogoro is made largely outside formal regulation, so its strength and quality vary from batch to batch. One akpeteshie sample measured 73 % ethanol, far above most spirits.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Ogogoro is said to have begun as a local answer to restrictions on imported spirits in the 1930s. It remains an informal livelihood in riverine Niger Delta communities, and Ijaw priests use it as an offering.

  1. [oluwole2023] Oluwole O., Kosoko S., Familola O., Ibironke O., Cheikyoussef A., Raheem D., Saraiva A., Raposo A. 2023, Fermented traditional wine from palm trees: microbial, nutritional attributes and health impacts, Frontiers in Food Science and Technology 3:1225762paper
  2. [oseiasare2020] Osei-Asare C., Eshun Oppong E., Apenteng J.A., Adi-Dako O., Kumadoh D. et al. 2020, Managing Vibrio cholerae with a local beverage, preparation of an affordable ethanol based hand sanitizer, Heliyon 6(1):e03105 (ethanol in akpeteshie by gas chromatography)paper
  3. [olanbiwoninu2026] Olanbiwoninu A.A., Awotundun T.A., Afolabi J.F., Fashogbon R.O., Fagunwa O., Gabriele M. et al. 2026, Ethnogeographic distribution of Nigerian fermented foods and the prospects for bioeconomy improvements, Foods 15(17):3087paper
  4. [tamang2016] Tamang J.P., Watanabe K., Holzapfel W.H. 2016, Review: Diversity of microorganisms in global fermented foods and beverages, Frontiers in Microbiology 7:377 (palm wine and toddy microbes)paper
  5. [pau-ogogoro] The Centenary Project, Pan-Atlantic University (curator O. Omojola), The magic of making ogogoro from palm wine, Google Arts and Culture storyweb
  6. [fermdb] FermDB (Bokulich lab, ETH Zurich), FermDB_data.tsv, row Ogogoro (citing Olasupo N.A. and Obayori O.S. 2003, J. Food Process. Preserv. 27:365–372)web
  7. [WP:List of alcoholic drinks] Wikipedia, List of alcoholic drinks (outline only)wiki