Rice wine is an

alcoholic beverage Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...

ferment Fermentation is a type of anaerobic metabolism which harnesses the redox potential of the reactants to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and organic end products. Organic compound, Organic molecules, such as glucose or other sugars, are Catabo ...

ed from

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

, traditionally consumed in

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

and

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

, where rice is a quintessential

staple crop A staple food, food staple, or simply staple, is a food that is eaten often and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard diet for an individual or a population group, supplying a large fraction of energy needs an ...

. Rice wine is made by the fermentation of rice starch, during which

microbe A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen microbial life was suspected from antiquity, with an early attestation in ...

s enzymatically convert

polysaccharide Polysaccharides (), or polycarbohydrates, are the most abundant carbohydrates found in food. They are long-chain polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with wat ...

s to

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

and then to

ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...

. The Chinese '' mijiu'' (most famous being ''

huangjiu ''Huangjiu'' () is a type of Chinese rice wine (''mijiu'') most popular in the Jiangnan area. ''Huangjiu'' is brewed by mixing steamed grains including rice, glutinous rice or millet with ''qū'' as starter culture, followed by saccharifica ...

''), Japanese ''

sake Sake, , or saki, also referred to as Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asi ...

'', and Korean ''

cheongju Cheongju (; ) is the capital and largest list of cities in South Korea, city of North Chungcheong Province in South Korea. The 'Cheong' in the name of Chungcheong Province is the Cheong of Cheongju. History Cheongju has been an important prov ...

'', '' 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 as an optimum serving temperature. Rice wines are drunk as a dining beverage in East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian cuisine during

formal dinner Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the biggest and most formal meal of the day. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around noon, midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, it gradually migrated to ...

s and

banquet A banquet (; ) is a formal large meal where a number of people consume food together. Banquets are traditionally held to enhance the prestige of a host, or reinforce social bonds among joint contributors. Modern examples of these purposes inc ...

s, and are also used as cooking wines to add flavors or to neutralize unwanted tastes in certain food items (e.g.

seafood Seafood is any form of Marine life, sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including Fish as food, fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of Mollusca, molluscs (e.g., bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters, and mussel ...

such as

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

and

shellfish Shellfish, in colloquial and fisheries usage, are exoskeleton-bearing Aquatic animal, aquatic invertebrates used as Human food, food, including various species of Mollusca, molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish ...

History

The production of rice wine has thousands of years of history. In ancient China, rice wine was the primary

alcoholic drink Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...

. 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 The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou d ...

(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 Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and #Fermenting, fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with Yeast#Beer, yeast. It may be done in a brewery ...

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 Domestication syndrome refers to two sets of phenotypic traits that are common to either domesticated plants or domesticated animals. Domesticated animals tend to be smaller and less aggressive than their wild counterparts; they may also hav ...

, 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

References

External links

Cambodian Rice Wine and Sra Sor Story
26 June 2021. Sam Inspire. {{Authority control Rice drinks Fermented drinks Alcoholic drinks

History

Production

Types

See also

References

Further reading

External links