# Rice wine

Rice wine is an alcoholic beverage fermented from rice, traditionally consumed in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, where rice is a quintessential staple crop. Rice wine is made by the fermentation of rice starch, during which microbes enzymatically convert polysaccharides to sugar and then to ethanol. The Chinese mijiu (most famous being huangjiu), Japanese sake, and Korean cheongju, dansul and takju are some of the most notable types of rice wine.
Rice wine typically has an alcohol content of 10–25% ABV, and is typically served warm. One panel of taste testers arrived at 60 °C (140 °F) as an optimum serving temperature. Rice wines are drunk as a dining beverage in East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian cuisine during formal dinners and banquets, and are also used as cooking wines to add flavors or to neutralize unwanted tastes in certain food items (e.g. seafood such as fish and shellfish).

## History

The production of rice wine has thousands of years of history. In ancient China, rice wine was the primary alcoholic drink. One of the first known fermented beverages in the world to use rice as an integral ingredient was a drink made from rice and honey about 9,000 years ago in central China. In the Shang Dynasty (1750-1100 BCE), funerary objects routinely featured wine vessels. The production of rice wine in Japan is believed to have started around third century BCE, after the introduction of wet rice cultivation.
As a result of Alexander the Great's expedition to India, the Roman Empire had begun importing rice wine by the first century BCE.

## Production

Despite being called a wine, the rice wine's production process has some similarities to that of brewing beer, reflecting its chief ingredient being a grain rather than a fruit. The specific approaches to making rice wine vary by type. Some rice wine (such as the Chinese rice wine, or Mijiu) is made from glutinous rice, while others (such as the Japanese Sake) is made from non-glutinous rice. However, all systems combine rice with some fungal culture in some ways. The fungal culture is called jiuqu in Chinese and koji in Japanese. In the traditional Chinese rice-wine-making approach, the glutinous rice is soaked for several days before being steamed, and subsequently is left to cool in a ceramic vat at near room temperature. Then, the jiuqu is added and mixed with the rice. The primary functions of jiuqu are to supply enzymes to convert starch to sugar and to supply yeast for ethanol production. After a few days, the liquid formed in the ceramic vat is combined with an additional mix of water and fungi to adjust the rice wine's water content.

## Types

| Name | Place of origin | Region of origin | Description |
| Agkud | Philippines | Southeast Asia | Fermented rice paste or rice wine of the Manobo people from Bukidnon |
| Apong | India | South Asia | Indigenous to the Mising tribe, an indigenous Assamese community from the northeastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh |
| Ara | Bhutan | South Asia | Also made with millet, or maize |
| Beopju | Korea | East Asia | A variety of cheongju |
| Brem | Bali, Indonesia | Southeast Asia |
| Cơm rượu | Vietnam | Southeast Asia | Made from glutinous rice. |
| Cheongju | Korea | East Asia | Clear; refined |
| Cholai | West Bengal, India | South Asia | Reddish |
| Choujiu | Xi'an, Shaanxi, China | East Asia | A milky wine made with glutinous rice |
| Chuak | India | South Asia | Milky rice wine from Tripura, India |
| Chhaang | Nepal, India, Bhutan | South Asia | Milky rice wine from Nepal, Northeast India, Bhutan |
| Dansul | Korea | East Asia | Milky; sweet |
| Gwaha-ju | Korea | East Asia | Fortified |
| Hakka | Meizhou, Guangdong, China | East Asia | Made from red yeast rice and glutinous rice |
| Hariya | India | South Asia | White; watery |
| Handia | India | South Asia | White; watery, from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India |
| Hanji | India | South Asia, Southeast Asia | Native to Chakma community living in India, Myanmar, Bangladesh. It is a fermented wine made from rice and apparently is white in colour. And is majorly consumed during festive season. |
| Huangjiu | China | East Asia | Fermented, literally "yellow wine" or "yellow liquor", with colors varying from clear to brown or brownish red |
| Judima | India | South Asia | Fermented, distinguished by the use of a local wild herb called thembra |
| Lao-Lao | Laos | Southeast Asia | Clear |
| Lihing | Sabah, Malaysian Borneo | Southeast Asia | Kadazan-Dusun |
| Laopani(Xaaj) | India | South Asia | Made from fermented rice; popular in Assam. Concentrated (pale yellow coloured extract) of the same is called Rohi |
| Lugdi | India | South Asia | Milky rice wine from Himachal Pradesh, India |
| Makgeolli | Korea | East Asia | Milky |
| Mijiu | China | East Asia | A clear, sweet liqueur made from fermented glutinous rice |
| Mirin | Japan | East Asia | Used in cooking |
| Pangasi | Philippines | Southeast Asia | Rice wines with ginger from the Visayas and Mindanao islands of the Philippines. Sometimes made with job's tears or cassava. |
| Phú Lộc rice wine | Vietnam | Southeast Asia | The spirit is made from sticky rice fermented with a traditional strain of yeast. |
| Rượu cần | Vietnam | Southeast Asia | Drunk through long, thin bamboo tubes. |
| Rượu nếp | Vietnam | Southeast Asia | Mildly alcoholic Vietnamese pudding or wine made from fermented glutinous rice. |
| Rượu đế | Vietnam | Southeast Asia | Made of either glutinous or non-glutinous rice. |
| Sake | Japan | East Asia | The term "sake", in Japanese, literally means "alcohol", and the Japanese rice wine usually termed nihonshu (日本酒; "Japanese liquor") in Japan. It is the most widely known type of rice wine in North America because of its ubiquitous appearance in Japanese restaurants. |
| Sato | Northeast Thailand | Southeast Asia | — |
| Shaoxing | Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China | East Asia | One of the most famous varieties of huangjiu, or traditional Chinese wines |
| Sra peang | Northeastern Cambodia | Southeast Asia | Cloudy white rice wine indigenous to several ethnic groups in Northeastern Cambodia (Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri). |
| Sulai | India | South Asia | Rice wine from Assam region |
| Sonti | India | South Asia | Andhra Pradesh, Telangana |
| Sunda Kanji | India | South Asia | Rice wine from Tamil Nadu |
| Tapai | Austronesia | Southeast Asia | — |
| Tapuy | Philippines | Southeast Asia | Also called baya or tapey. Clear rice wine from Banaue and Mountain Province in the Philippines |
| Tuak | Borneo | Southeast Asia | Dayak |
| Leiyi, Zam, Khar, Paso and Chathur | India | South Asia | Varieties of wine and beer from Manipur region |
| Zutho | India | South Asia | Rice wine from Nagaland |