“In 2023, I stood up on stage at Tales [of the Cocktail] and said, ‘The future is Africa,’” says Collin Asare-Appiah, winner of the 2024 Visionary Award at New Orleans’ annual Tales of the Cocktail festival and co-founder of Ajabu Festival. It’s Africa’s premiere international cocktail festival, hosted in South Africa twice a year. “There’s so much happening here on the continent, including a growth of interest in the hospitality scene as a profession, so we thought we should connect all our global friends with folks here in South Africa.”
This semi-annual cocktail festival, which began in the spring, taking place in Johannesburg before its November event in Cape Town, is a new hot spot for award-winning cocktail bars and bartenders from around the world to come and celebrate the vibrancy of African ingredients and culture through bar pop-ups across the city, share resources through seminar series, network, and, of course, drink and party.
As a location, Asare-Appiah shared that South Africa was a perfect hub because it’s fairly easy to fly into and out of domestically and internationally, plus it’s the inspiration for the pornstar martini. This cocktail was created by his dearly departed friend, Douglas Ankrah, who also dreamed of the day that Ajabu would come to life. It’s now here, and the founder has big plans for its future.
“I would like to get the other cocktail festivals across Africa to pop up here at Ajabu to give people cultural emersions,” he says. “Alexander Quest from Abidjan Cocktail Week, Lara Rawa from Lagos Cocktail Week, and Brian [Kassim Owango] from Nairobi Cocktail Week; Ajabu is a place where they can all come together.”
One of the big differences between Ajabu and other similar events is that there are no “bar takeovers” but rather “bar mashups.” International guest bartenders and taverns collaborate with popular local bars to create new cocktails that meld with the host’s current menu and style, thus creating a learning opportunity for both teams as they work together.
“What’s epic about Ajabu is that it’s in its infancy,” says Richie Barrow, the General Manager for Food & Beverage for Tribe Hotels Group in Nairobi, Kenya. “I have no doubt that Tales [of the Cocktail] started out exactly the same way.”
Barrow is GM of the internationally renowned, superhero-inspired Hero Bar, based in Nairobi. From his team, Annette Mulama and Moe Riungu came to Ajabu to represent Kenya and got to work at fable, a local bar and club in the city center. With Riungu as the head bartender at Hero Bar and Mulama recently being celebrated at the 2024 World Class Kenya Bartender competition, this all-Black-woman team created my favorite pop-up cocktail of the whole event: the Chai Whiskey Punch (complete with a homemade Kenyan Chai blend that I wish I could take home with me).
One of the best parts of these collaborations is the people that you meet and connect with (in some cases, reconnect with) from bar to bar, and the concoctions that spark discussion. “I really enjoy the storytelling behind each cocktail,” Zolela Maholwana, an art and fashion multi-hyphenate in every sense, shares. She was there with fellow Capetownian content creator Langa Parks. “The drink that I have is a Bronze Venus and it was influenced by Josephine Baker, who was one of my favorite fashion icons. So it’s not just a cocktail, there’s a story behind it.”
For a five-day festival, I was surprised at all the events and seminars that were packed into such a tight time frame. One of my favorite events was bartender speed-dating at Hope Distillery. Groups of attendees were placed together to get to know different bartenders and try a new cocktail or spirit every 15 minutes. I was paired up with the South African Diageo team and they were an absolute vibe!
Ajabu also partnered with the Cape Town Beverage Show, where several heavy hitters in the African beverage industry came to discuss Africa’s growing presence in the international bar scene in a conversation called “Africa Rising.” This talk featured Kojo Aidoo (founder of Accra Bar Show and the GM for Front/Back Accra), Alexander Quest, and Barrow. Quest shared how, in Côte d’Ivoire, infusing plantain into the distillation process of rums and roasting spices into cocktails is becoming increasingly popular. Also, Aidoo discussed the differences between palm wine and sugar cane wine, and Barrow officially launched Kenya’s first-ever Bartender Week for September 2025 (it’s open to the international public, too, so stay tuned for more information).
There were numerous other seminars around town featuring award-winning bartenders and owners from countries like Mexico, Singapore, and the Caribbean islands. I even had the opportunity to host my own panel about mental health in the bar industry with an all-femme panel from around the world. We discussed navigating sexual harassment behind the bar, combating burnout, and management skills to keep employees safe (physically and mentally). Also, 47 scholarships were given to up-and-coming bartenders to further their education, and one-third of them identified as South African. Everywhere you turned, there was something to do, see, and participate in for the entire week (and, of course, there were drinks at every event).
Ajabu closed out with a massive party where each international bartending team had 30 minutes to put on a show and dish out one last round of signature craft cocktails. I stayed up significantly past bedtime, drinking and laughing with my new friends, exchanging Instagram handles, taking pictures, and making connections. Whether you are attending solo or as a group, the Ajabu Festival, I found, has a way of building community organically. I have no doubt that it will soon become the place to be every year, whether you join the spring event or participate in the fall fête.
As Burrow says, “If we can support Africans and the African bar community and give it the support to grow, then it will have the opportunity to become an international reaching festival.”
