Shaking it up African cocktails help reinvent drinks culture

At an event in Abidjan in late October, Alexandre Quest Bede noticed someone staring. Then the stranger walked over for an autograph. "He pointed at me excitedly and said: 'You're Monsieur Gnamakou, I know you from Instagram!'" recalls Bede at the poolside bar of Bissa, a boutique hotel in the upmarket Deux Plateaux neighbourhood on the eve of Abidjan cocktail week.

- Eromo Egbejule

Gnamakoudji, often shortened to gnamakou, is a ginger juice and a beloved staple in Francophone Africa, including Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast.

For Bede, a doctor turned mixologist, gnamakou is a cocktail go-to, highlighting the region's unheralded flavours. That playfulness is on display at the second Abidjan cocktail week, which ends tomorrow.

The first was held last year by Bede and his business partner, Yasmine "Afrofoodie" Fofana, a blogger and the founder of the Abidjan restaurant week.