By NEIL SAMSON KATZ
Published: March 9, 2008 PART A1- Many people go to Vietnam for the food, for the beaches, for the history. My wife and I went there to drink.
2 - It was that liquid pilgrimage that found us rumbling down a windy dirt road in Vietnam’s northern mountains on a crystal January day. Our target, Vietnam’s homemade rice wines and Sa Pa, a stunning mountain town less than 200 miles northwest of Hanoi, near Lao Cai. Once a 19th-century retreat for the French elite, today it is home to mostly ethnic minorities like the colorful Black Hmong and Red Dzao, who have been making rice wine in the same simple fashion for generations.
3 - Indeed, rice is the crop of life there. Nearly every inch of available land is used to cultivate it. And for the Black Hmong, according to our guide, a young Hmong woman from the area, accepting rice wine in a buffalo horn is a vital part of their courting ritual.
4 - In Sa Pa’s mountainous environs, steep valley walls are terraced with the crop’s beautiful geometries. Small wooden huts dot the valley floor, revealing a communal life that, despite motorcycles and the occasional satellite TV, still churns at its own pace. In one such village, Ta Van, we found Huong Van Thi tending to a large steaming pot of rice.
5 - Ms. Huong’s family has been making rice wine as far back as anyone can remember. Her neighbors claim it’s some of the best. They should know. They buy 70 liters of it a week.
PART B
6 - Inside her wood-slatted shack, the air was thick with yeasty smoke. Ms. Huong threw long sticks into a small fire as she explained her provincial technique.
7 - First, she boils rice in a huge metal pot, then ferments it with yeast and lets it sit for two weeks. The fermented rice is boiled again and alcohol rises from it as steam. A pan of cold water on top of the pot cools the rising steam, condensing it into a warm potent liquid ready for drinking.
8 - Others make it faster, but Ms. Huong claims her slow fermentation “makes the wine taste and smell better, with no side effects, no headaches.”
9 - Our first taste came straight from the pot. It was warm, smelled of flowers and went down easily. Local residents pay 10,000 dong for a liter, about 62 cents at 16,000 dong to the dollar. We gladly paid a little more.
10 - We had gone to Sa Pa by overnight train from the capital of Hanoi, where life moves at breakneck speed.
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Note: The full article "Vietnam Culture by the Glass" can be found with the link below:
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