A new craze for a homemade ginger beer is making Cape Town residents sex-mad.
Like regular ginger beer, it is cheap, relieves stress, and saves money.
But this drink, made and sold in a Cape Town informal settlement, is no ordinary ginger beer.
“It makes us horny all the time,” said 40-year-old Nosisa. “After drinking it, you feel like having sex.”
The sellers of the drink are more than aware of the power it holds, offering condoms and a spare room to their customers.
A 52-year-old man started drinking it during the lockdown. “When the liquor stores were forced to close because of the Covid-19 regulations, we were only left with ginger beer. It was my first time drinking it, and I never looked back.”
He says a litre will set you back R10, while the thirstiest punters can buy a five-litre bottle for R50 7de laan.
“It is difficult to stay sober when you have so much going on, it is dangerous, but it is all we can afford,” he says.
The drink’s exact ingredients are kept a secret. Its makers reveal only that it is made with ginger and alcohol.
Despite the drink’s obvious advantages, however, the man says there are downsides.
“We love and enjoy it, and the only thing we hate about it is it will wake you up in the middle of the night to run in and out of the bathroom because it causes diarrhoea.”
He says they make things easy for themselves by sleeping naked so they can run straight to the toilet when they have to.
We visited one of the houses in a Cape Town informal settlement that sells this ginger beer.
At the back, there is an empty shack and condoms. The owner said she built the spare room for patrons to have their quickie because she knows their behaviour when drunk.
“I don’t only care about their money,” she said, “but also about their health and needs.”
She buys ginger beer powder at a nearby mall and said she adds a blue yeast used at the bakery, sugar and water. The mixture is ready in 24 hours.
A 30-year-old woman told us that she lost weight after drinking ginger beer. “Ever since I started drinking it, I lost my appetite. I don’t have an appetite for anything except making love.”
She said it takes only two glasses for one person to get drunk.
“We don’t have money for expensive alcohol, but we don’t stress about that because we get drunk by drinking our ginger beer,” she said.
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