Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A distilled alcoholic beverage made from bananas or millet.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Swahili.

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Examples

  • Some who make the local gin, called waragi, have begun distilling it with poisonous methanol.

    StarTribune.com rss feed 2009

  • Some who make the local gin, called waragi, have begun distilling it with poisonous methanol.

    Home 2009

  • The hard work and creative nature of Rusimwa Donosio has seen him operate a thriving business handling local brew, commonly referred to as "waragi" here in Uganda.

    Kiva Loans 2010

  • Charles has had a business selling 'waragi', a local brew, since 1984 and his idea of getting loans was to help improve the quality of his 'waragi'.

    Kiva Loans 2009

  • Most of the crude waragi, Dr Tusiime said, has been contaminated with methanol, although authorities are still waiting for results from the government chemist -- on actual levels of concentration.

    AllAfrica News: Latest 2010

  • Kabale - Twenty-four more people have died in the past week bringing the number of deaths thought to be caused by contaminated waragi in Kabale District to 65.

    AllAfrica News: Latest 2010

  • Residents used the calamity to make money by selling food, beer, waragi and local brew to the trapped travellers.

    AllAfrica News: Latest 2010

  • The Kabale Deputy RDC, Mr Shafique Ssekandi, said besides impounding the suspected contaminated crude and sachet waragi, the police should start arresting anybody found drinking the liquor.

    AllAfrica News: Latest 2010

  • The government health officials have set up an operation in the area impounding jerrycans of crude waragi, arresting anyone caught selling crude alcohol and topping it up with sensitising the public about the dangers of crude waragi.

    - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community John 2010

  • Reports indicate that people are now disguising the selling of this fatal crude waragi, selling it inside beer bottles instead of the formerly used plastic sachets, glasses and transparent bottles.

    - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community John 2010

Comments

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  • Banana or millet hooch.

    November 28, 2011

  • "Tusingwire Patrick is slouched in a chair at the Victory Rehabilitation Center on the outskirts of Kampala, recalling his time as a maker of homemade banana gin. "I knew it could be dangerous, but I didn't know it could kill so many people," says the 34-year-old former primary school teacher.

    Patrick is referring to the more than 100 people who have died in western Uganda since early April after ingesting a methanol-laced version of a homemade gin known as waragi. The popular drink, easy to make and cheap to buy, has been blamed for causing blindness and death before, but never so many in such a short span of time. Illegal production of hard liquor is a problem across much of Africa, but it may be worst in Uganda."

    - Ioannis Gatsiounis, The Battle to Stop Drink from Destroying Uganda, TIME, 19 May 2010.

    January 3, 2016

  • Our Ernest abroad keeps his hand in.

    There's never a word he'll abandon,

    Though it does seem a vagary

    To glean such as waragi -

    A word that's not ours but Ugandan.

    Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit

    May 29, 2016