Local Nigerian Drinks
There are lots of local nigerian drinks but I will be talking about just 3 of them.
Most of the local Nigerian drinks are made with natural ingredients which you can get at your local market
They are also healthy alternatives to the soft drinks and you can tweak the sugar content as you please.
And if you have totally gotten rid of sugar from your diet, you can sweeten your drinks with fruits
Zobo
This is the most popular local drink made from a specie of hibiscus calyces which are boiled with whatever natural flavours you want. I boiled mine with grated ginger, orange, lemon and sugar cane to sweeten. You can have Zobo as hot tea, as a cold beverage on the rocks, as a mix for your cocktails. Let your imagination guide you
Kunu
Another popular drink but mostly associated with the Northern part of the country. The recipe I used was learnt from my Mum since she lived her childhood in the North.
One thing I discovered while making this is the entire process is no different from making ogi (pap); but instead of using corn as with Ogi, you use millet. I used a combination of millet and the white guinea corn blended with ginger, cloves and alligator pepper. Don't blame me, I like spicy .
Pito
This is a popular Lagos street drink hawked around in big calabashes especially in the market areas but they use plastic buckets now and they even add milk to it; evolution I guess. In some parts of the country, Jos to be precise, Pito is some sort of beer and the Lagos version is a revised, non alocholic, sweetened, diluted version.
I made the Lagos version and I had to get drunk on it to get the recipe out of the different sellers, lol.
I made mine from the fermented water drained from my blended kunu, boiled it with lemon grass, oranges, burnt/blackened sugar (this gives it the dark brown/ black colour). You can garnish it with whatever fruit you want and with ice cubes. If you are not keen about the colour, omit the burnt sugar and just add sugar to taste but i guess it will give you another street drink called adoyo.
Go ye into the world and enjoy all the goodness nature has to offer.
Namaste
