At the local brewery where it is made, it always starts off in the early morning, as drops of a yellow watery substance falling from a hanging cane basket into a basin below. The basket will contain a moist brown substance – guinea corn flour.
By afternoon, the yellow liquid in the basin will turn a reddish-brown color. It will then be Pito, ready for consumption.
Guinea corn
Pito is a locally brewed alcoholic beverage, popular in Ghana especially in the northern parts. It is made from Guinea Corn and served in calabashes.
Though there is always the option of bottled alcoholic beverages such as beer, some people relish the sour, somewhat sweet and sometimes, biting taste of Pito because they think it has some health benefits. So I traveled to the Upper East Region town of Navrongo to find out why this traditional alcoholic drink is popular there.
I visited the house of Cynthia Ananga, a popular Pito brewer. Cynthia has to expose herself to the intense heat of her big fireplace for several hours every day, just to brew her Pito. She said the brewing process often takes over 30 hours of manual work, most of the time, she does that standing on her feet.
It is a difficult job but Cynthia has been doing it for 20 years. Perhaps her customers have been the motivation for her stay in the business all these years.
These customers, sometimes arrive at Cynthia’s house which also serves as the drinking joint, even before the beverage is ready. They sit under a tree or a nearby shed and converse as they wait to get served.
But it is not only Cynthia’s brewing skill that attracts these customers. Some of them told me that though there is the option of regular beer and other bottled alcoholic beverages, they prefer Pito because they believed it had some health benefits.
A 67-year-old customer, also a retired teacher said he had been drinking Pito since age 25 and though he goes for an occasional beer, Pito was the favorite for him because he believed the local beverage was a blood tonic due to its reddish color.
One young man, also a customer at Cynthia’s Pito joint said, he preferred Pito to other drinks because alcoholic beverages like the local gin (akpeteshi) cause his body temperature to rise due the hot weather in the area. Pito however, keeps him cool. He went on to claim that health officials in the town even advise people to drink Pito sometimes as a substitute for water, as that could keep them healthy.
It will interest you to know that yeast is added to the Pito during the brewing process. Cynthia told me that the yeast is often added after boiling the Pito. This quickens fermentation.
Some other customers do not consume alcohol and therefore, like the Pito when it is not fermented. For such customers, unfermented Pito is better than bottled non-alcoholic beverages.
A young lady told me; she does not like the feeling when she regurgitates gas after consuming bottled soft drinks. For that reason, she goes for unfermented Pito.
Another male customer said unfermented Pito is fresh and has no additives and therefore is good for his health – his reason for choosing it over regular soft drinks.
Like all alcoholic beverages, Pito if consumed irresponsibility, can lead to intoxication and its associated consequences but the long term effects of alcohol from Pito are comparatively thought to be minimal, though not scientifically proven.
Another factor that accounts for people’s preferences of Pito to bottled beverages is the fact that Pito is far less expensive.
All the customers I interacted with at Cynthia’s place said it was more economical to buy Pito than regular bottled beverages.
Cynthia uses the small-sized emulsion paint plastic container to measure her Pito. This is referred to by her and the customers as ‘one gallon of Pito’ and is sold for GHC 7.
It will take at least 6 bottles of beer to fill that container and considering that a bottle of beer is now sold for at least GHC 4 in Ghana, you can do the math.
For those who cannot consume the full ‘gallon of Pito’, all they need is GHC 2 for a calabash of fermented Pito or GHC 1 for a calabash of unfermented Pito. The contents of one full Pito calabash is equivalent to about two beers.
Pito is also used for pouring libations and serving guests at traditional functions such festivals and funerals.
And for tourists who come to the Upper East Region, taking a sip of Pito is one way of satisfying their curiosities but some of them end up enjoying it and asking for more.
The question is; with such commercial value, is it not about time Pito was packaged better, produced in larger quantities and possibly exported for foreign exchange for the economy? This is undoubtedly a golden business opportunity with massive economic prospects but perhaps only after the relevant feasibility studies.
Source: Albert Sore | MYJOYONLINE.com | GHANA
