VN – 27 May, 2025

Our ferment of the week is palm sap, and it was fun seeing if we could ferment it. Palm sap comes from particular palm trees such as date palm and coconut palm. Palm sap has a high-sugar content, so ferments quickly, and has a short shelf life. The fermented sap can be used to make palm wine, palm spirit, and palm vinegar.

Palm wine is drunk across the tropical world, often as part of traditional celebrations or poured on the ground as libations during cultural rituals. It is mildly alcoholic at around 4% ABV. It is often made in small batches and sold local to where it is produced. To make palm wine, you need a particular type of the bacteria Saccharomyces, which is common to the areas where the palm trees grow.

We bought our Nigerian palm sap online from a UK supplier. We have since found it for sale at Glory Afro Caribbean in Brixton Market.

Now to our efforts to ferment palm sap. We made two small batches, one we refrigerated, the other we left out to naturally ferment. We left both for 2 days. The results were mixed. The refrigerated sap became fizzy and stayed sweet. The sap left at room temperature definitely became sourer, but flat, and cloudier in consistency. We'll definitely do some more experiments with fermenting palm sap.