The spirit with a lot of soul: Amarula
I remember collecting fallen marula fruit during visits to the Kruger. I’d roll the small, round, bleached-yellow ball between my hands to soften the fleshy centre and suck it dry until my hands and face were sticky with its flesh and sap. Marula fruit sits in that corner of my neuro centre reserved for childhood memories of running barefoot, scuffed knees and horse-riding. I know the aroma of marula. It isn’t something you ever forget – it smells like nature’s breath…
I’ve discovered that few people share this familiarity. The fruit with its fibrous white flesh, thick skin and distinct, frank smell is a foreign concept. But add an ‘A’ as prefix and the situation changes. Everybody knows the product made from this fruit – ‘A’marula – the cream liqueur with the elephant on its label.
It is true that Amarula, with clever marketing and a budget to boot, appeals to a wide spectrum of palates. Promotional imagery of Amarula pulses with romantic visions of blood-red sunsets over the savannah – associations that have appealed so successfully to consumers that Amarula is currently the second-best-selling cream liqueur brand in the world (only to be outdone by Baileys). Therefore, when I travelled to the heart of Amarula, I was surprised that a brand of such stature should have such humble beginnings.
The soul of Amarula
An introduction to the soul of Amarula leads me to Phalaborwa where the fallen marula fruit litter the veld and permeate the air. I am reminded of a scene in Jamie Uys’ wildlife documentary Beautiful People showing wild animals gorging on ripe marula fruit. In the documentary, the animals are said to get drunk due to the juice fermenting in their stomachs. The result is classic scenes of elephants swaying through the bushveld and tumbling baboons.
But Jamie Uys didn’t dedicate these entertaining minutes in cinema to marula purely because of the humour value; the truth is that any documentary on Africa will be incomplete without some kind of reference to marula. It is as much Africa as the big five, safaris, acacia trees and dung beetles. It literally has its roots in the African soil but, on a figurative level, the reach of the marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) and its yellow fruit is much further, and deeper.
Found in sub-equatorial pockets on the African continent, you’ll encounter the highest density of marula trees worldwide in South Africa’s north-western corner. The tree itself is thick stemmed, with a host of expressive, equally sturdy branches reaching to a lush canopy. It can reach 15 to 20 metres in height with a 24- to 30-metre canopy; the circumference of its stem can be anything between four and six metres. If you were a child scouting for a location for your treehouse, you’d want to pick a marula tree. It is that kind of tree.
There is a natural calm in the shade of this African giant. Which perhaps explains why local communities not only revere the tree for its long line of life-sustaining qualities, but also for its range of connections with key moments in people’s lives, whether it be giving birth, marriage or dying and the afterlife.
“The marula tree is like a book, it will tell you everything,” tells Shinayena Mthabini Wazita, a sangoma who, among her collection of future-telling bones, includes marula pips (which incidentally, when dried, have ‘eyes’ where the natural cavities have been hollowed out to get to the fleshy, nutty core).
It is a curse to cut down a marula tree: it is believed that the tree has a direct link with ancestors – it is where new family members are introduced to the gods and where death is mourned. People in Limpopo refer to it as God’s gift and the ‘marriage tree’ with the months between January and March being an especially revered time as the fruit from the marula tree ripen and fall to the ground, heralding ‘harvest time’. It is not incidental that babies conceived in this period are referred to as ‘marula babies’, as the season also provides a profusion of homemade marula beer (the result of three days’ fermentation) that is shared among people in a friendly, neighbourly fashion.
It is the people’s tree, which is why it is comforting to see that Distell, as the biggest shareholder in Amarula, has honoured the tradition of the population by including them in the making of this cream liqueur.
The Amarula Lapa and Factory
Situated in the middle of the verdant bushveld, some 13km from the Phalaborwa Gate of the Kruger National Park, is the Amarula Lapa and adjacent factory. Here, for three months of the year, there is massive excitement as thousands of bags filled with marulas are brought to the factory by some of the nearly 6 000 harvesters. The trees grow everywhere: on tribal land, private backyards, next to roads, in public areas – but at all times the kgosi, or local chiefs, are consulted when it comes to the harvesting of these trees.
Outside the factory, the air is heavy with the scent of marula that intermingles with clicks and whistles of the local dialect; bags dance in the heat, and harvesters sit, patiently, awaiting their turn to deposit their ration of fruit. Masses of fruit are delivered daily and, standing between the magnitudes of bags, it is difficult to believe that the total amount of marulas used in human consumption is merely 1%.
The board of Amarula is adamant that it applies the spirit of ubuntu – a philosophy that stresses interconnectedness between beings. Distell, marketer and producer of the Amarula brand together with fruit company Mirma, determines wages for marula fruit in accordance with wishes of community leaders (this season it was R33 for an 80kg bag, R22 for 50kg and R15 for 25kg). Many of the women and men I spoke to expressed their gratitude for this lifeline at the beginning of the year when there are school fees and post-holiday debts to be paid.
Harvest time sees up to 130 tonnes of marulas processed daily into 65 tonnes of pulp. From here the Amarula recipe (like the one for the Amarula cake served at the Amarula Lapa) is confidential. What they do tell you of the process is that the pulp is transported to the processing plant in Stellenbosch where it is transferred to fermentation tanks and inoculated with a pure yeast culture. As with grapes, the natural fructose is converted into alcohol – in fact they talk of ‘marula wine’ – and once fermentation has been completed it is transferred to the distillery where it is distilled in column and copper stills. The spirit is then matured in small French oak barrels for two years, after which it gets blended with cream, packaged and distributed – to 103 countries worldwide.
Since it was launched in 1989, the brand has grown in envious proportions: it has been ranked as one of the world’s fastest-growing spirit brands by researcher Euromonitor International, and has also been listed in 86th position on the 2010 Impact Databank World’s Top 100 Premium Spirits Brands list. In 2009, the product received Superbrand status. It is easy to entertain the perception that Amarula is a frolicsome drink enjoyed by those who also add brandy to their Coke, but it isn’t difficult to understand the appeal: creamy with a rich, toffee-like taste and relatively low in alcohol in comparison to spirit-based liqueurs at 17% makes for easy drinking. It is also a versatile product; locally it is enjoyed on crushed ice, in shooters, sauces and cakes. In Brazil they suggest you pour it over your suntanned lover.
On occasion, sipping the creamy liqueur during a game-drive break, even I was seduced by it. Etienne Gouws, Amarula tourism manager, did his best to convince me to add some Coca-Cola to my conventional Amarula on crushed-iced serving – a mixture known as a brown elephant – and I’ll be honest, he made it sound so delicious that I was tempted to.
Amarula is definitely a brand that stretches the imagination when it comes to food and drink combinations. At the Lapa, visitors can pair various Amarula-inspired snacks such as beef burgers drizzled with Amarula sauce, sticky Amarula chicken wings and Amarula cake (the Lapa’s ultimate delicacy) with Amarula-themed cocktails. Be warned though, have a few too many and you might end up imitating those tumbling animals in Beautiful People.
Although, says Josh Beaton, game ranger at Kapama Private Game Reserve, Jamie Uys’ documentary isn’t completely factual. “An elephant would have to eat tonnes of marulas to get drunk,” he informs me. There exists a strained symbiosis between elephants and the marula tree. Elephants are the main distributor of the marula seeds but also strip bark off the trees, exposing it to the elements and diseases, this love-hate relationship enjoying emphasis in packaging and television advertisements – the star of which lives at Kapama Private Game Reserve’s Camp Jabulani. Here visitors can get close to Sebakwe, the Amarula elephant, and its 11 herd members, in the form of an elephant-back safari – an experience that is blissful, humbling and completely worth the price. I rode on the back of Fishan, a 22-year-old male elephant known as the ‘comedian’ of the herd. Alongside ran Mambo, Kumbura and Pisa, the cheeky calves, whose presence made the experience that much more complete. It is as close as you will ever come to experiencing the secret world of these magnificent creatures, from their rumbling, vibrating conversations to their improper and frequent farting!
It was an appropriate ending to an all-round soul-affirming experience, and even though I am not completely seduced by the cream liquid on ice, I am impressed by Amarula’s proudly South African heritage – so much so that I am proud to conclude that I am, absolutely, 100% a marula baby.
VISIT THE AMARULA LAPA
The Amarula Lapa and adjacent factory are situated a mere 13km from the Phalaborwa Gate of the Kruger National Park. Here you can enjoy some Amarula-inspired snacks and shop for souvenirs.
Monday to Friday: 08:30 – 16:30
Saturday: 09:00 – 12:00. Tel 015 781 7766
GETTING THERE
Fly directly to Eastgate Airport in Hoedspruit, not far from Phalaborwa. South African Airways offers
connecting flights from OR Tambo International. Visit www.ysaa.com.
By car, take the N1 to Polokwane, and then the R71 via Tzaneen. The Amarula Lapa is situated on the R40 turn off from the R71. A more scenic option is to take the R71 to Tzaneen, and then the R36 turnoff. Follow this to the R526 turnoff from which the R40 leads to the Amarula Lapa.
WHERE TO STAY
Kapama Private Game Reserve is home to Camp Jabulani and its herd of elephants. Here you can opt for the luxury tent offering, starting at R10 600 for two people. Elephant-back safaris are R1 775 per person. Tel 012 460 5605 for Camp Jabulani bookings.
