Chinese Rice Wine

Today, we will be going over how to make some basic Chinese or Shaoxing Rice Wine. Before we delve into how I’ve made it, I think it’s important to learn the culture and history of the foods

A Brief History of Rice Wine

Evidence for alcoholic beverages date back 3700 years ago during the Shang dynasty. Archaelogist have found jars of ancient rice wine which date back thousands of years. At first, rice wine was a celebratory beverage only enjoyed by the super wealthy or during times of fantastic harvest. Rice wine required that there be an excess harvest as it was not a favorable use of rice when it could be consumed as food. Therefore, in early times it symbolized a propsering community. However, as rice wine slowly grew in popularity, production methods and government intervention allowed for it to be produced cheaply. Soon, every restaurant, tavern, and inn had jar upon jar of rice wine. In almost every single ancient Chinese show you can see martial artists drinking heavily in pubs.

Rice wine production is something that even today is not 100% mechanized. Depsite all the advances in technology every single vat of rice wine produced must first be run by a professional. They check up on the rice wine everyday and listen to the bubbles, inhale the scent of the fermentation, and visualize the yeast producing carbon dioxide. Once they have deemed the vat of rice wine ready to go, then machines take over the filtering and processing of the wine. I’ve linked here a really great video on the production of rice wine: Secrets Behind an Age-old Rice Wine Recipe😋

Production

I know you guys are probably all wondering why the heck I’ve got a salsa jar on this blog about rice wine. But I assure you, this is indeed fermenting rice wine. While the process of making rice wine appears relatively simple, there a few tricks here and there to make it taste all that much better.

Step 1 – Boiling The Ingredients

Combine the following ingredients and boil them over the stove for approximately 45min.

• 1 cup glutinous rice flour (if you don’t have glutinous rice flour you can either take rice and grind it in a blender or find it at your local Chinese grocery store)
• 1/2 cup sugar (completely dependent on how sweet you want it)
• 1tbsp yeast
• 5 cups tap water (best not to use spring or bottled water)

Here, you can add some flavoring or something special. While making it I personally added some homegrown strawberries. I was making this rice wine for my mom and she really loves fruity stuff so I threw some of that in. But here’s a short list of other possible ideas.

• Mint
• Any fruit or fruit juice
• Black sesame
• Chocolate (This one is not for the faint of heart. Some may love it, and most will hate it)

Step 2 – Filtering and Bottling

This part is relatively simple. Take your boiled mixture and remove all the solids from the solution. Then put these in glass jars with the seal a little bit loose. It is very important that the seal is slightly loose. Otherwise, the pressure inside the container may be too great for a plastic or paper bottle causing it to go KABOOM.

Step 3 – The Waiting Game

It takes some patience, but the longer you wait the better. Check in on your wine every two or three days and give it a quick stir. If you see any particles floating to the bottom try and filter them out. I recommend waiting at least 2 months but the wine should be ready after only 2 weeks.

Step 4 – ITADAKIMASU

I’ve hoped you enjoyed this process. I truly believe rice wine is an amazing drink that can bring joy to any household. If you tried making this yourself please leave a comment and let me know how it went!