Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2002/11/03/bengo_bourbon.php
Sunday, November 3, 2002
Bengo Bourbon
2 oz. Bourbon
2 oz. Bottled, Imported Lemonade
2 oz. Coke
Serve on ice and garnish with the feather of a peacock.
When men used to go big game hunting, they always used to use Nairobi or Dar-es-Salaam as their base town, apparently for no other reason than that the Abercrombie trips would start from there. Never one to mix with hoi polloi, I preferred instead to base my trips out of the Angolan capital of Luanda. Besides the obvious advantages of avoiding the overweight Americans and the talkative Brits, basing my trip there allowed me to outfit my expedition with the assistance Lisbon Wines, probably the finest wine importer in southern Africa. In addition to a superb selection, they had a very knowledgeable staff, which even I found useful, as I was somewhat inexperienced in matching fine wines to, say, crocodile or rhinoceros meat. After a difficult day of outfitting the trip there, I would always head down the street to the Mussulo Bar, where a friendly local who knew better than to water down my drink would always serve me up one of these.
Unfortunately, Angola fell into a civil war not long after I started frequenting Luanda, forcing me to stay away for nearly twenty years. I returned recently, however, to revisit some fond ole memories and found, to my surprise, that not only were both the Lisbon and the Mussulo still there, but the city had recovered almost completely from the previous years of conflict. Now I raise my glass to the good people of Angola whenever I mix myself a Bengo Bourbon.