Drinking Traditions of Southern Africa: 6 Local Beverages That Define a Region

From high veld savannas to warm Indian Ocean coasts, Southern Africa’s climate shapes what people drink. Grains like sorghum, millet, and maize thrive in semi-arid zones, while marula and palm fruits anchor seasonal ferments along riverine and coastal belts.

Across townships in Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town and in rural homesteads, alcohol often marks milestones—harvests, weddings, initiations, and ancestor rites. Expect opaque grain beers, palm wines, and fruit brews served fresh, social, and deeply local.

Umqombothi is South Africa’s emblematic opaque beer, brewed from sorghum malt, maize meal, and water. The mash is boiled, cooled, and left to ferment with wild and lactic bacteria, producing a living beer that remains unfiltered and slightly effervescent. Thick and creamy, it pours a tan, porridge-like body with tangy aromas of sourdough, grain, and light banana esters. Alcohol content sits low—typically 3–4% ABV—so it’s shared over long conversations without overwhelming ceremony.

Historically central to Xhosa and Zulu rites, umqombothi accompanies weddings, funerals, and ukuhlonipha ancestor offerings, often served in an earthenware ukhamba. You’ll encounter it in township shebeens around Johannesburg and Cape Town, and at rural gatherings where elders bless the first sips. The drink connects to rain-fed smallholder agriculture: sorghum and maize withstand drought better than barley, embedding resilience into the glass. Related brews appear across the region—Lesotho’s joala and Eswatini’s opaque beers—underscoring a shared grain culture shaped by climate and ceremony.

Chibuku is a commercial version of traditional opaque beer popular in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. Made from sorghum (often blended with maize), the grain is malted, mashed, and fermented, then sold unfiltered in paper cartons or plastic pails nicknamed “shake-shake” because sediment settles at the bottom. It tastes tart and grain-forward, with lactic acidity, faint banana, and a yogurt-like finish. Fresh batches start around 3–4% ABV and can rise slightly as fermentation continues.

Launched in mid-20th-century Rhodesia to standardize a beloved village brew, Chibuku traveled with migrant labor networks from the Kalahari cattle posts to the Zambian Copperbelt. Today it’s a dependable paycheck drink in Gaborone, Harare, and Lusaka—affordable, filling, and social. Expect morning queues at bottle stores on weekends, and mid-afternoon sessions under shade trees where it’s poured into communal cups. Its popularity mirrors the endurance of sorghum in semi-arid farming systems and the region’s preference for fresh, probiotic-rich beers over heavily filtered lagers.

Buganu is a seasonal marula beer cherished in Eswatini and neighboring regions of South Africa and Namibia. Ripe marula fruits are crushed, their juicy pulp diluted with water, then left to ferment spontaneously with native yeasts for one to three days. The result is a hazy, straw-colored brew with bright tropical aromas—guava, lychee, ripe apple—balanced by lactic tang and gentle nuttiness from the marula’s famed kernel. Strength varies widely, but most batches land between 2–8% ABV, depending on sugar content and fermentation length.

Buganu arrives with the rains—roughly January to March—when marulas drop en masse. In Eswatini, the Marula Festival near Mbabane celebrates the first brew with music, dance, and royal ceremonies; in South Africa’s Limpopo belt, families press and share in courtyard calabashes. Travelers can taste fresh buganu at roadside stalls or community events, but timing is everything: it doesn’t store well and is best consumed the day it’s made. The drink’s seasonality ties local calendars to wild fruit ecology, making each sip a timestamp of the summer harvest.

Along Mozambique’s coast, sura (palm wine) is tapped at dawn from coconut or raffia palms. Tappers slice the flower stalk and collect sap in gourds; the sugary liquid begins fermenting immediately with ambient yeasts. Hours later, the drink turns faintly fizzy and opalescent, with aromas of coconut water, fresh bread, and light vinegar notes. Fresh sura sits around 4–6% ABV, gaining strength and acidity as the day warms, and sometimes being boiled or left overnight to nudge it higher.

Sura is a daily refreshment in fishing communities and a ceremonial pour during coastal weddings and initiations. In Maputo’s informal markets—and up the Inhambane coast—you can try it before noon, when it’s gentlest and most perfumed. The drink expresses maritime terroir: salt-laden breezes, sandy soils, and abundant palms. Some households distill surplus ferments into stronger spirits, but most sura is enjoyed fresh from the calabash, pairing naturally with grilled prawns, cassava, and beachside conversation.

Kachasu is a potent home-distilled spirit found in Zambia, Malawi, and parts of Zimbabwe. The mash blends maize meal or sorghum with sugar, sometimes bananas or fruit peels, then ferments before being pot-distilled in improvised metal-drum stills. Cuts are rarely precise, so flavor ranges from fruity and estery to solventy; responsible makers redistill and discard early fractions. ABV spans roughly 20–50%, with the best batches landing smooth and pleasantly warm rather than searing.

Born of colonial-era restrictions and cash economies around mines, kachasu became the unofficial after-hours drink in Copperbelt settlements and urban compounds. In Lusaka and Harare, you’ll find it in informal bars where conversation stretches late, often flavored with local botanicals. While authorities periodically clamp down over safety concerns, kachasu persists as a symbol of ingenuity and access—grain-to-glass spirits made outside industrial supply chains. If you taste it, do so with trusted hosts who know the maker and the cut; good kachasu shows surprising tropical fruit notes over a dry finish.

Tombo is a Namibian opaque beer rooted in the north’s pearl millet (mahangu) fields. Coarsely ground grain is cooked into a thick porridge, cooled, and inoculated with a bit of yesterday’s brew or malted flour, then left to ferment into a dense, tangy beverage. The profile is earthy and sour with cereal sweetness, akin to drinkable sour porridge, and sits at a sessionable 2–4% ABV. Served unfiltered in buckets or enamel mugs, it delivers both refreshment and calories in hot, dry climates.

You’ll encounter tombo in village homesteads and at cuca shops—informal bars—in northern Namibia, and increasingly at cultural markets in Windhoek. It’s poured at weddings, post-harvest feasts, and communal workdays, echoing a farming rhythm tied to drought-resistant mahangu rather than water-hungry barley. Similar millet beers appear across the region under different names, but tombo’s identity is distinctly Namibian: practical, communal, and adapted to the semi-arid Oshana and Kunene landscapes. Expect friendly negotiation over who gets the last ladle from the shared bucket.