
Yellow rice wine chicken is a popular dish in the Hakka culinary tradition. One might be familiar with red and white wine, but what about yellow rice wine?
Historically, villagers in the New Territories used to produce their own wine using glutinous rice for personal consumption. Made from simple ingredients like glutinous rice, water and yeast, the preparation of yellow rice wine is rather straightforward but labour-intensive.
Rice was a staple food for villagers residing in the New Territories. In addition to growing regular white rice for meals, villagers also planted a small amount of glutinous rice for brewing rice wine and making rice cakes. The process of making rice wine involves steaming soaked glutinous rice. Once cooled, the rice is combined with crushed yeast before being transferred to a fermentation vessel. Depending on the humidity and temperature, fermentation takes around three to four days in summer or six to seven days in winter. After fermentation, water is added, and the wine is left to mature for another seven to ten days before it is ready for consumption. There is no requirement for distillation in the procedure. The name ‘yellow rice wine’ is derived from the golden colour the wine acquires as it matures.
In addition to yellow rice wine, residents in Sha Tau Kok used to make various high-alcohol white spirits like distilled rice wine, soju and rose liquor in private and sold them in the Sha Tau Kok market. Yet, the illicit manufacturing of distilled spirits was prohibited in the past. Inspections in rural villages were routinely conducted by law enforcers. If the villagers were caught brewing wine in secret, their equipment for alcohol production might be confiscated and destroyed, thus the risk at hand was certainly significant.