Farmers in the East African country of Malawi have learned that when life gives you overripe bananas, you make banana wine out of them — and it's surprisingly delicious.
As BBC reported, our rapidly warming climate is causing more extreme weather events in the region, such as heavy rainfall and heat waves. As a result, banana crops are either getting washed away or ripening too quickly, resulting in lost profits for farmers.
Rising water levels in Lake Malawi forced them to relocate banana plantations from the lakeshore to higher ground. While the bananas no longer drown, they now face scorching temperatures of up to 107 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Up here, we have way too much heat. It makes our bananas ripen very fast and go to waste," Emily Nkhana, a farmer in the area, told BBC.
However, she and other farmers discovered that banana wine was a sweet solution to give them economic security and allow people to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Nkhana and other women in Malawi's Karonga district grow banana crops in their backyards and make the wine in a small house in a nearby village.
After cutting up the overripe bananas and combining them with sugar, yeast, raisins, and water, the women cover the mixture with lemons, which help preserve the bananas' fruity taste. The banana pulp then ferments over several weeks, turning into a sweet wine with a 13% alcohol content.
While banana wine hasn't yet caught on in the Western world, it's quickly become a favorite among African locals.
"It's smooth and light, almost like a dessert wine," Paul Kamwendo, a wine connoisseur in Karonga who quickly fell in love with the wine, told BBC. "I had no idea one could make wine out of bananas."
Nkhana and her fellow farmers said the secret of a perfect banana wine is striking a balance between tartness and sweetness.
"Timing is everything," she said. "You have to know when the bananas are at their best. Too ripe, and the wine becomes too sweet; too green, and it's too tart."
At local markets across Malawi, banana wine producers sell their sweet concoction for $3 a bottle, and it's been a major hit so far.
"We sell them at markets across Malawi, in the capital Lilongwe and in the biggest city Blantyre and it is always sold out," Tennyson Gondwe, the chief executive of Community Savings and Investment Promotion (Comsip), a co-op that teaches women how to produce banana wine, told BBC.
Banana wine production hasn't just given farmers a new opportunity in the face of our changing climate — it's also taught them the importance of community and resilience in uncertain times.
The Twitule Cooperative Group, another local co-op, makes between 5 to 13 gallons per month and aims to move its operations to a larger factory eventually to scale up production. Because of a growing global interest in banana wine, Comsip asked the Malawi Bureau of Standards for export approval, which would take the business to new heights.
While traditional wine isn't going away anytime soon, winemakers are having to flex their creative muscles to keep the industry afloat, turning to drought-tolerant grape varieties and other adaptation techniques.
What will the wine of the future taste like? It's too early to tell, but bananas aren't out of the question — and may even be the answer.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
