Kenyan Honey Wine & Cambodian Rice Wine

Wherever I travel I seek out private alcohol production. No government can prevent people from letting nature do its work — or to be more accurate — no government can prevent people from helping nature do its work. Add sugar and water to just about anything and you get an alcoholic beverage. I’ve made wine from lots of fruits, but also from the fennel that grows wild near my house which I then distilled into eau de vie using an old fire extinguisher, a copper tube and a five gallon plastic bucket.

In this photograph taken in northern Kenya, Joseph is wrapping a damp cloth around the junction of two pots. His specialty is fermented honey, but here he is preparing to distill a millet beer. This still is very basic. The beer is placed in the bottom pot. On a stand that holds it above the beer sits a bowl. A concave lid is placed on top, the seem is bound with damp cloth, water is put in the lid and a fire lit underneath. The beer evaporates, the steam condenses on the underside of the lid and alcohol falls into the pot. This is the same method used by the pioneers on their westward expansion.

I walked to Joseph’s house, which is on the outskirts of a town, in the late afternoon. I walked against a tide of children carrying little yellow plastic containers of alcohol into town — the evening delivery of distilled spirits. Private alcohol production is fairly easy to find. Sometimes ones nose finds it. This is particularly true within the narrow streets of Chinese villages. In Cambodia I found my first still by simply heading out of town until someone approached me who spoke English. “Anyone make wine,” I asked? “Follow,” was the answer, and I was led to an exotic still, a fabulous array of wok, plastic tubing, and, for the condenser, a ceramic pot for the coil.

The process for making rice wine is the same process used to make vodka, brandy, grappa or whisky. All distillation is the same. Put an alcoholic beverage in a pot, any alcoholic beverage, heat it, and collect the condensed steam. For large quantities—and also for best control—steam is fed out of the pot into a tube where it condenses and can be easily collected. To make the system practical the tube carrying the steam runs from the pot into condenser, a coiled tube surrounded by water.

In the illustration on the left is the pot used by this Cambodian family to make rice wine. It is a modified wok. The lid has two holes for plastic tubing. The wok is placed over fire and clear plastic tubes run a short distance into coiled tubing that sits within a large ceramic barrel. What you see in the photograph to the right is the pot placed over the firebox. If you look carefully at the bottom of the picture you can see the remains of sticks that were used as fuel. The plastic tubing carries the steam to the condenser within the large ceramic barrel in the background.

The maximum theoretical amount of alcohol you can distill from a beverage is, obviously, the amount of alcohol that is in it. Thus from any unit of grape wine you can, theoretically, purify out the 12% of it that is alcohol, or, from beer, the 4%-6% that is alcohol. In practice, one gets less. The first alcohol that comes out of the still doesn’t taste good. These are “the heads” and they are typically thrown away. As one continues through the run the percentage of alcohol in the steam declines, and the amount of water vapor increases. At some point point what is coming out of the condenser is dilute and also doesn’t taste good. This portion of the run, is called “the tails.” The tails are also, typically thrown away. The tails are, however, alcoholic. I was once in a Thai village with a large Chinese minority celebrating Chinese New Year. For days the village was awash in free alcohol—the tails had evidently been saved all year by the local moonshiners to be distributed free on the holiday.

Quality alcohol is distilled more than once. It is distilled twice and even three times. Each time the alcohol is distilled it is further purified isolating particular alcohols and particular flavors. Whether distilled once, twice or three times, the finished drink, depending on custom, may be cut with water. I have spoken with distillers in China who say that nothing with less than 60% alcohol (120 proof) can be sold. The standard for quality alcohol in the United States and Europe is 40% alcohol (80 proof).

The alcohol distilled by this Cambodian family is derived from fermented rice. Rice is easily fermented and makes a lightly alcoholic drink when fermented the traditional way. Yeast used to ferment rice is tyipically sold in small white balls like those pictured on the tray to the left. This kind of yeast can be purchased in the United States in grocery stores catering to an Asian clientele. To make rice wine cook rice in the regular way. When it has cooled to blood heat, and you may let it cool in the pot for small batches, or spread out on a mat for larger, break into the rice some yeast. Next, pack the rice into a bowl that you can keep warm by surounding it with blankets or by keeping it, covered in an oven with pilot light. In three to four days, the rice, to which no additional liquid has been added, —will give off liquid which will be lightly fermented. You can serve the rice with its fermented liquor as a dessert—at its best it tastes light a rice pudding with a little port, or pour it off and drink it in a glass.

If you add sugar and water to the rice and use yeast designed to survive a high alcohol level—champagne yeast for example—you can make a drink that is more alcoholic. But that is not the traditional way. When you go to a Chinese market, ask for yeast to make rice wine. The yeast is usually sold in packages with two balls each. Ask for instructions when you buy the yeast. In my experience, in California, where I live, rice is often fermented in the households of recent Chinese immigrants, the yeast balls are easy to buy, and advice on fermenting technique is freely given.