Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Dutch gin in West Africa (book review)

Insa Nolte, book review of Dmitri van den Bersselaar, The King of Drinks: Schapps Gin from Modernity to Tradition, in Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 23/2 (Spring 2009): 201-203.

Chocolate at Principe (article)

Xan Rice, "Life, Liberty and Fine Chocolate: An Italian Entrepreneur Pursues Simple Perfection on a Tropical Isle," Utne Reader, May-June 2009, pp. 53-56.  Reprinted from New Statesman, January 15, 2009.  Discusses Claudio Corallo who has a cocoa plantation on Principe, the twin isle of Sao Tome.  Previously Corallo had grown coffee in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) and now grows coffee on Sao Tome.  He now is thinking of making rum too.

Gin in West Africa (book)

Dmitri van den Bersselaar, The King of Drinks: Schnapps Gin from Modernity to Tradition (Brill, 2007). Colonial and independent West Africa.

TOC

Chapter 1. Introduction: foreign imports, local meanings
Chapter 2. The Rise of Gin
Chapter 3. Becoming the King of Drinks
Chapter 4. ‘Bird gin’ and ‘money gin’: brands and marketing
Chapter 5. Poison or medicine? Changing perceptions of Dutch gin
Chapter 6. ‘Your very good health!’ Gin for an independent West Africa
Chapter 7. Schnapps gin from modernity to tradition
Chapter 8. Bibliography
Index

Guinea-Bissau, world's first narco-state?

According to the (London) Guardian newspaper, the former Portuguese colony now known as Guinea-Bissau may be the first narco-state. With only 1.5 million people, few police, and no jails, it now shares its sovereign space with Colombian drug lords who send cocaine to Europe via the little West African country. For more, see here.

Are Amy Winehouse and other drug-taking celebrities making West Africa the "coke coast"?

The UN official in charge of drugs and crime, Antonio Maria Costa, blames celebrities who openly take drugs (in particular Amy Winehouse) for glamorizing cocaine and thus helping to turn West Africa's former "gold coast" into a "coke coast." Drugs from Latin America are smuggled to Europe via poorly policed West African countries. Costa draws a historical analogy: once Europe devastated West Africa with the slave trade and now it devastates West Africa with the drugs trade. For more, see here.

Alcohol ravages South Africa's children

The poverty-stricken South African town of De Aar has the unenviable distinction of the world's highest reported incidence of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).

Read more here.

Guinea-Bissau, allegedly Africa's first narco-state

According to the (London) Independent, 17 July 2007, drug gangs control Guinea-Bissau, a small West African state that formerly had been a Portuguese colony. For more, see here.

Ohio school defends serving gin to students at elementary graduation

An Ohio charter school that emphasizes African history and culture served gin to elementary school students as part of what they said was a Ghanian right of passage, and state education officials said they plan to investigate.

The CBC reports.

Commodities of Empire (from H-Empire)

Readers of ADHS may be interested in this post which appeared on H-Empire:

CFP: "Commodities of Empire" international workshop, London, July 13-14,
2007

The Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies (Open University) and
the Caribbean Studies Centre (London Metropolitan University) have
launched a collaborative research project entitled 'Commodities of
Empire'. Details of this project can be found on our website:
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/commodities-of-empire/index.h
tml

We are organising an international workshop in London, 13/14 July 2007,
and would like to hear from anybody interested in participating. We
would particularly like to hear from researchers wishing to attend from
Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America who are working on any
historical aspects of the global movement of commodities (i.e.
industrial crops, foodstuffs and stimulants).

For more details, please contact either Sandip Hazareesingh
(s.k.hazareesingh@open.ac.uk) or Jonathan Curry-Machado
(j.currymachado@londonmet.ac.uk).

Dr Jonathan Curry-Machado
Research Fellow
Caribbean Studies Centre
London Metropolitan University

Latin American drug dealers prefer euro instead of the dollar

Latin American drug dealers now prefer the euro over the dollar. For more, see here. The same International Herald Tribune article says that drugs now often enter Europe from West Africa (Latin American cocaine, Asian heroin, Chinese chemicals).