African inspirations

For once, Africa is good news. Symrise has launched a series of beverages with African ingredients which have the novelty factor as well as health benefits on their side.

The African Inspirations series include liqueurs, flavoured vodkas, beer mixers and ciders with “exotic” fruits and spices. The company claims that the products are natural as they contain high-quality extracts and distillates obtained from native raw materials.

For example the cacao liqueur uses a blend of cacao from the Ivory Coast and typical African spices such as cardamom, while the cider has a rooibos flavour note. Rooibos, or red bush, is a plant commonly used in tea in South Africa.

There is a flavoured vodka with honeybush-marula available. Other flavoured vodkas which taste of papaya/rooibos or guava/rooibos are in the pipeline.

Beer mixes, which could take the markets by storm, include kumquat, honeybush/papaya, pineapple/coriander, maracuja/cardamom and guava/rooibos.

Symrise says that many of the new beverage concepts have been developed for the EAME (Europe, Africa, Middle East) region and that it is focusing on ideas that underscored the “long-term mega-trends of health, indulgence and convenience”.

Out out Africa – and out of this world. Even if you are not Ernst Hemingway and this ain’t Mount Kilimanjaro (5900 m), South Africa’s Drakensberg mountain range at 3200 m is pretty close to being an ultimate African experience. Photo: Verstl