It is the same warning they give you with muratina: that you should not be fooled by the sweetness as the honey-based brew trickles past your tongue. That after a while, it can and will demonstrate that it is alcohol anyway.
So, when I order a canned sweet banana-based alcoholic drink at the Fusion Restaurant in the Hemingways Retreat Kigali, with the alcohol content indicated as 14 percent, I am warned that the sweetness is a Trojan horse; that this drink has the power to make me attempt a Guinness World Record for the longest vernacular weeping soliloquy.
‘Vernacular? No. I’ll do it in the King’s English if it comes to that. The fluent-est English I will ever speak,’ I say. This is because I do not wish to drag my community in the mud any further because Embarambamba has already done the do.
It is a Thursday evening, and a calm Kigali breeze pats my face as I sit with fellow Kenyans P-, C- and R- to patronise the bar. They are not too sure about my choices, having seen me commit sacrilege by adding soda as a chaser to prosecco (an equivalent of champagne) the previous day.
Our venue used to be called the Heaven Retreat before it was acquired by Hemingways, and you can tell why someone would name it Heaven. A couple of tourists laze by the swimming pool not too far from us, and everything oozes luxury.
The spoons on the table aren’t too big but this is the place where patrons eat life with big spoons. It is an eco-conscious luxury boutique hotel and it shows. For instance, no drinks are served in plastic bottles. In the rooms, they have a notice asking whether you really want to have your towel washed every day.
The cocktails at the bar range from Rwandan kari vodka to something called blood Mary that is a mix of vodka, tomato juice, lemon juice, worcestershire, tabasco, and celery.
P- and C- order their cocktails while R-, a teetotaller, sips something mild. I settle on my banana drink. It is so good I order a second.
True to the promise, it is more juice than alcohol to the tongue, though it doesn’t take long before I start feeling pop-up notifications on the upper reaches of my cranium. Not today, Embarambamba, er Satan. Not today.