What's in a Drink? Class Struggle, Popular Culture and the Politics ofAkpeteshie(Local Gin) in Ghana, 1930–67

Abstract

This article examines the history ofakpeteshie(local gin) in Ghana from its illicit origins and widespread distillation in the 1930s to about 1967, when the Convention People's Party – seen as the ‘champion’ of theakpeteshieindustry – was overthrown.Akpeteshiedistillation proliferated when temperance interests succeeded in pressuring the colonial government into raising tariffs on imported liquor in 1930, just before the onset of a world-wide depression. Urban and rural workers, unable to afford expensive imported gin, became the patrons ofakpeteshie. For urban workers,akpeteshiecame to underpin an emerging popular culture.Akpeteshiedistillation threatened the colonial government's prior dependence on revenue from imported liquor, raised the specter of crime and disorder, compromised colonial concerns about urban space, exposed the weakness of colonial rule and eventually led the British government into the embarrassing diplomatic position of seeking an alteration of the Saint Germain Convention of 1919 that had banned commercial distillation of spirits in the African colonies.By the 1940s,akpeteshiehad emerged as an important symbol of African grievances under colonial rule. It became entwined in nationalist politics from the 1940s, and its legalization was one of the first legislative acts passed by the independent Ghanaian government. But the overwhelming African support forakpeteshieas an indigenous drink aside, the drink conjured images of class and popular protest that divided Ghanaian society and would unnerve independent African governments. As a cheap drink,akpeteshiebecame associated with the working-class experience, reflecting the social inequities within Ghanaian society and the undelivered promises of the independence struggle.