Hello Hive

Indeed with the marchinleo prompts anything can become a blog. Who would have thought that we can make a blog out of the ordinary brewery process we use to make our local drinks here in my country and state.

Actually this might excite someone out there who doesn't know about how we transform our millet, guinea corn and maize into this local favorite drink of the people here. Coming from Benue state we call this drink in two local names, "Odugba" and "Ogwo". It equally amazes me to notice that some other parts of the country also take this same drink and we all prepare it in similar manner, meaning that majority of the people from my country know about this drink. The Hausa people call it "Kunun Zaki" and almost everyone call it "Kunun" the short form.

source

I grew up hawking and selling Kunun right from a tender age of 6 😂. It was my mum's business been a full time housewife who wanted to empower herself with some source of income.
We lived in the police barracks since my dad was a policeman.
My mum sold varieties of local meals and drinks to people in the barracks especially the new recruits and trainees. Each time they engage in a parade training and were dismissed to go for a break, they head straight to our store for refreshment. Our ready made kunu will be served to them chilled having been stored in iced cooler.

We made some good fortune selling Kunun and my mum used most of the funds to support the family finance.
On days when sales are poor, I would hawk the drink 🍷🍻 in the barracks and sell to everyone who cares to buy. My mum was usually hailed for making the best kunun in the whole of the vicinity.

The making process of Kunu

You can chose to use either Millet or guinea corn . Sometimes we add a bit of maize for budget and economic reasons.

That is guinea corn and the next one is maize, millet can be seen along side kunu in the picture above.

• Soak millet in water for hours to soften the grains.

• Prepare some potatoes and fermented rice 🌾 grains.
  The potatoes is usually used as a natural sweetener for our Kunun, we often avoid the use of artificial sugar

• Wash and blend the grains

• Equally wash and blend the potato and fermented/pre-grown rice 🌾 grains

• Boil substantial amount of hot water

• Prepare the blended groans into a thick liquid form and add enough of the boiled water into it.
  At this point we are often careful and watch the color change to observe when we must have added enough water and the kunu is well cooked.

• Allow the Kunu to cool off a little, then we prepare the blended potato and fermented rice into a liquid form as well.
  This is then added to the already cooked and slightly hot Kunun.

• Mix the both mixture properly and filter off shaff after everything has cooled off. This may take like 5-7hour.

• You can chose to add a little sugar before bottling everything. Store in a fridge and serve chilled.

We were out of business when my mum eventually passed on and I couldn't continue with the so many activities to be done. Kunu making is still a profitable business in different part of the country.

And that ends the blog for today as part of my participation in the #inleo daily prompts which you can check out here , as you can check out here and be a participant.
Stay tuned to the next episode and prepare an entry.

Thanks for stopping by.

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