What is a sundowner, one may ask? Now, this, in many a narrative is one for the hopelessly romantic aristocrats, the blood lust filled hunter or just the heat seeking rebel to the wind scouring the land for the next gamble, but in my mind’s eye, the sundowner is quintessentially one of the most exquisite experiences of living or travelling in Africa.
Yes, our mighty beasts are majestic and they must be the reason that that everyone should travel thousand of miles to Africa. Our shores are caressed by the warmest of turquoise blue waters, BUT, I tell you, a world class safari beach or bush, will always feature a memorable sundowner and that, my friend, will stay with you forever.
An expert safari team will have the ‘Sundowner’ element of your holiday very very well organized. Now, I am talking about location, timing, ambience, mood, glorious food ofcourse, and then the famous sundowner, the tipple of your choice, sipped and enjoyed as you watch the mighty African sun dissolve into the horizon, a melting globe of heat, searing the sky into purple and port and brilliant saffron hued burnishes. The atmosphere is electric as you sense the darkness of the night beginning to roll in and the night creatures beckoning with their haunting night calls..the screech of a bush baby. This is Africa at her most seductive and it takes a few elegant touches to turn this into an enchanting time of day.
As you all know, I’m a natural born Culinarian, so I wanted to know all about how a sundowner came about. It’s so famous, that A Sundowner, is featured and defined in Wikipedia as a”colloquial British English, an alcoholic drink taken after completing the day’s work, usually at sundown and a tradition that goes hand-in-hand with British colonial life in East Africa.” Gin and tonic was a common choice of beverage, the tonic containing quinine was thought to help fight malaria and a slice of lime could be added as a guard against scurvy. Nice excuse people..
A sundowner in all elements, is a drink that takes half its deliciousness from the very specifically chosen setting. That’s why the tradition of marking the end of a day with a drink endures in any place where you can actually view the sun sinking.
The perfect sundowner spot – Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in the classic film, Out of Africa
There’s more to the sundowner than setting, of course. I particularly love this description by Rosemary walden..” Classic sundowners are dust-cutting, heat-beating, thirst-slaking drinks that need lots of ice – cooling drinks that stand tall in the glass. And since they’re pre-dinner drinks (it’s sundown, remember), they’re basically simple.
The sundowner has been an unfussy drink for decades. In colonial times gentlemen sat around in white linen suits underneath ceiling fans in tropical bars or on verandas. The bartender, who in such establishments would wear a turban , would see to it that someone would bring your drink out to the veranda, while you sat in a very large rattan chair and smoked.
There was etiquette and serious protocol for a proper sundowners. Pre-war clubs in the tropics often had strict traditions governing when one could begin to bend an elbow – for example, not until the sun dropped behind a certain hill, or before the afternoon shadows crept up the courtyard wall of the clubhouse and reached the flagpole-unless it was a holiday, of course. Such was the love and habit of a sundowner enjoyed by a generation of wildy adventurous thrill seekers, that it was taken less acceptingly by those that had no interest in a little alcoholic indulgence.
One of those individuals was Sir Alfred Davies, the late permanent Education Secretary, on returning from Kenya in 1929 that dramatized and ‘condemns as vicious the cocktail – the “sundowner” habit of the colony. He says ” a wretched convention dictates that the day begins and ends with the habit, and that he has counted as many as sixteen bottles of spirits ready for use in one private home.The greatest asset that could come to Africa,” he said, “would be a man openly denouncing this habit, which is sapping the lifeblood of the colony.”
I have to say, this made me laugh…roar with laughter. This is Kenya and it’s own personal charms, sundowners and all, is why generations of families have never left these shores, debilitating into miserable wretches when they do. They miss the searing heat and our white powder sand beaches, the exhilaration of Safari and the the friendly faces. This is a land of celebrating the good life and the vast undulating canvas quality landscapes we are blessed with.
So, pour your favourite tipple, gin or no gin, and toast to the soil beneath your feet, the skies that soar above your head and the adventures that you seek beyond the vale…and salut especially to all of my Taste Safari friends that are the wind beneath my wings!
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