{"id":6129,"date":"2021-11-22T10:32:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T10:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy"},"modified":"2021-11-22T11:28:12","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T11:28:12","slug":"lesothos-own-brandy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho\u2019s own brandy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>Go, eat your food with rejoicing, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for already the true God has found pleasure in your works,\u201d so says the Big Book.<\/p>\n

Driven by that divine, Mohapi Pule has gone a step further \u2013 by coming up with a new type of brandy \u2013 to make you merry. The brandy, Mountain Spels Brandy, will make the heart of the dying man rejoice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe healthy nutrients in fruits that make brandy, end up in you when you drink it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pule studied nutrition at the National University of Lesotho. His brandy is made by fermenting fruits into wine. The wine is then distilled into a brandy.<\/p>\n

It carries the flavour and the aroma of the original fruits. The story began when Pule was born in Quthing, Mphaki. He was born to a hardworking mother who brew traditional beer like no other.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe brew beer well before I was born. She is still making it to this day,\u201d he said. His passion for brewing was probably \u201cborn\u201d even before he was born.<\/p>\n

Mothers have a hidden way of passing not just their looks but their passions to their children. As he grew up, he found that he was still intertwined with his mom\u2019s brewing business in one way or another.<\/p>\n

\u201cMostly, I am expected to fetch water for the brewing process. That, I still do to this day when I visit home,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Two decades later, Pule found himself in the Roma Valley, doing BSc in Nutrition. \u201cAt some point, I found that I had lost purpose in life. There was not a thing that I could say, well, I was passionate about this thing or that thing.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nThat situation, of course, threw him into some serious soul-searching. It brought him back to his roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this period, I recalled that when I was younger, I used to imagine helping my mom do the packaging of the beer she was making and helping distribute it countrywide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

From a young age, the issue of subsistence business didn\u2019t appeal to him. But that imagination came and passed. Now here he was, worried that he might not amount to anything in life.<\/p>\n

Then, boom! An idea came!
\nWhat if he produced an alcoholic drink? He could have thought about anything to do as a business but, lo and behold! He thought about his mother\u2019s passion!<\/p>\n

One of the things he loves about alcoholic beverages is that they are popular. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen products as popular as alcoholic drinks,\u201d he said. He might be wrong or right but the reality is, the rest of the world has for generations found delight in alcoholic beverages \u2013 some to the extent of overdoing it to their injury!<\/p>\n

\u201cMabele khunoana ralitlhaku thabisa lihoho. Mabele u tsoa kae e le khale re u batla re sa u thole? Ueeeena mabeeeele!\u201d (Loosely translated beer brewed from sorghum make men happy.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been looking for you from afar, you sorghum. In short, this is a praise poem for the Sesotho sorghum brew). But then came the most difficult part.<\/p>\n

Which specific beverages should he focus on and how would he do it? He decided that he would focus on ciders. He realised that not many people in Lesotho were making ciders.<\/p>\n

He started experimenting at home and realized how difficult the process was. He just couldn\u2019t get it right. To worsen matters, he also did not have the right equipment.<\/p>\n

But like most successful innovators, he just knew that he had to start his business right away. Pule says he then learnt about other forms of beverages: the spirits.<\/p>\n

Spirits are very high in alcohol content. Here we are talking the likes of whiskey, vodka and brandy. He was particularly interested in vodka. He went into one NUL laboratory and, with necessary permission, began testing a number of spirits and doing a lot of research about them.<\/p>\n

He began saving some of the money he earned from the National Manpower Development Secretariat in the form of student allowance so he could buy equipment.<\/p>\n

Saving was not easy. The subsistence money was already not that much. Having to share it with a business was asking a little too much. But Pule was so determined that he did it, bought equipment that allowed him to develop what he thought was \u201cvodka\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, after buying the equipment he immediately realised that the equipment was to make brandy not vodka. \u201cNow I was forced to get into brandy by chance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was a mistake that he has never regretted having realised that there are very few individuals who were making brandy in Lesotho. Pule had to throw himself fully into experiments.<\/p>\n

He read books about brandy production. He even enrolled for an online course on distillation. In the end, he began to see some light. \u201cI began to feel some difference in the taste of my produce,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I shared my produce with my lecturers, they were over the moon!\u201d
\nWith that encouragement, Pule began packaging his brandy and is now selling it to family and friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy small equipment means that I can\u2019t produce much. However, If I were to get bigger equipment, things would be much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. Go, eat your food with rejoicing, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for already the true God has found pleasure in your works,\u201d so says the Big Book. Driven by that divine, Mohapi Pule has gone a step further \u2013 by coming up with a new type of brandy \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":6128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,9,16],"tags":[233,246,523,245],"class_list":["post-6129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-miscellaneous","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-book","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"\nLesotho\u2019s own brandy - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Go, eat your food with rejoicing, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for already the true God has found pleasure ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lesotho\u2019s own brandy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Go, eat your food with rejoicing, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for already the true God has found pleasure ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-22T10:32:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-22T11:28:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/11\/img-619b7eb1503de.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Lesotho\u2019s own brandy\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-22T10:32:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-22T11:28:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy\"},\"wordCount\":899,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/11\/img-619b7eb1503de.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"book\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"miscellaneous\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-own-brandy\",\"name\":\"Lesotho\u2019s own brandy - 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